The Gentle Storm

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The Gentle Storm
Arjen Lucassen (left) and Anneke van Giersbergen
Arjen Lucassen (left) and Anneke van Giersbergen
General information
origin Netherlands
Genre (s) Progressive metal , folk
founding 2014
Current occupation
Anneke van Giersbergen
Arjen Lucassen

The Gentle Storm is a Dutch progressive rock / folk band. The band is signed to InsideOut Music and has so far released a studio album.

history

Anneke van Giersbergen at the Rockharz 2015

After the release of the Ayreon album The Theory of Everything , the guitarist Arjen Lucassen fell into a "creative black hole" and did not know what to do next. On his Facebook page, he asked his fans what they would want from him. About the same number of people spoke out in favor of a hard and a soft album. Since Lucassen couldn't make up his mind and didn't want to write an album that unites both sides, he began to write two versions of each song. One version contains the songs in progressive metal, the other the quieter, folkloric versions.

Lucassen was now looking for a suitable singer and thought of Anneke van Giersbergen . With the former singer from the band The Gathering , Lucassen already worked on the Ayreon albums Into the Electric Castle and 01011001 . Coincidentally, van Giersbergen called Lucassen about another matter and mentioned, rather casually, that both “should make music together again”. Lucassen then presented his idea to her, whereupon van Giersbergen agreed to participate. For the recordings, the duo recruited, among others, the drummer Ed Warby (including Gorefest ), the bassist Johan van Stratum ( Stream of Passion ) and the pianist Joost van den Broek (including After Forever ).

The Gentle Storm at the Rockharz 2015 in Ballenstedt.

The debut album The Diary was released on March 20, 2015 via InsideOut Music and reached number six in the Dutch, number 38 in the German and number 62 in the Swiss album charts. The texts written by Anneke van Giersbergen tell the story of a Dutch couple in love in the 17th century. The man is a seafarer while his wife stays at home. The couple write letters to each other, which are often on the move for months. In order to obtain historically correct texts, both musicians consulted a historian who happened to be a fan of Ayreon and The Gathering. For the songs Heart of Amsterdam and Shores of India were music videos rotated.

Apart from a few acoustic concerts, Arjen Lucassen will not go on tour with The Gentle Storm. Ferry Duijsens and Merel Bechtold (inter alia MaYaN ) as well as Marcela Bovio (Stream of Passion) as a background singer appear as guitarists . The Gentle Storm played at the Wacken Open Air , Rockharz Open Air and Night of the Prog festivals in 2015 and at ProgPower USA in 2016 .

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
The Diary
  NL 6th 03/28/2015 (6 weeks)
  DE 38 04/03/2015 (1 week)
  CH 62 03/29/2015 (1 week)

Albums

  • 2015: The Diary (InsideOut Music)

Music videos

  • 2015: Heart of Amsterdam
  • 2015: Shores of India

Web links

Commons : The Gentle Storm  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ Jan Jaedike: Tears don't lie . In: Rock Hard , April 2015, page 64
  2. ↑ a b Sebastian Kessler: Golden Times . In: Metal Hammer , April 2015, page 52
  3. ↑ Chart sources: Netherlands (albums) - Germany - Switzerland