This album is The Gathering’s Rust In Peace or
Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness in that it charts new
musical territories and progressive ideas while expanding on the
band’s signature sound. It’s also a double disc, but that’s hardly
the most striking similarity to Megadeth or the Smashing
Pumpkins.
How to Measure a Planet? is a tour-de-force.
It is the album where The Gathering finds their visions fulfilled,
where they sounded the way they could and should sound. They did
away with the metal and gothic posings they fostered with their
previous albums in order to create music that transcends
boundaries. Toning down the guitars and focusing on the dreamy
atmospherics and beautiful vocals, courtesy of Anneke van
Giersbergen, who proves time and time again she is one of the
finest female vocalists of all time. With this album, she
solidifies that claim because her emotive voice fits better with
this kind of music, where she can just focus on channeling emotions
through her singing without having to coexist with distorted
guitars.
The album deals with distance, where the songs talk
about yearning for someone (“Rescue Me”), the feeling of witnessing
the vastness of an endless horizon (“Great Ocean Road”), or the
exhilaration of flight (“Liberty Bell”). Even the sound sympathizes
with the theme of the album, embellished with the verdant and vivid
instrumentations the band is known for.
“Great Ocean Road” is (IMHO) one of the best songs
ever recorded. The main riff just washes the listener off your feet
and engulfs you in the unknown deep, where dreams are forged into
reality. The powerful tapestry of sound is realized though the
affecting singing of Anneke. This song is just powerful, amazing,
superb and wonderful.
“Rescue Me” contains the great love song line “All I
want is to be where you are.” It’s made more powerful by the
yearning music and the wall of sound in the middle, creating a
feeling of desire in a lost world. The song could have gone head to
head with “Great Ocean Road” as the best track of the album if not
for it being slightly under-produced, which leaves it a little dry.
“My Electricity” is another winner, a lovelorn, sentimental song
with a simple arrangement, carried by the spacious and jangling
guitars.
Also, “Liberty Bell” is an upbeat, ascending pop song
that invokes a feeling of flying with the uplifting, soaring music
blasting through the speakers. “Travel” feels like a dream
sequence, a collection of riffs from previous songs serving as a
culmination of the first disc. “Locked Away” is similar to “My
Electricity,” only this time, the guitar blasts in during the
chorus.
There are many other great songs, though they tend to
come in short supply on the second disc, which is more daring but
too indulgent, especially coming after an amazing first disc. But
that first disc is so strong it makes How To Measure A
Planet?, as a whole, a masterpiece.
