TOUGH LOVE
Anneke van Giersbergen’s back catalogue is rich and varied. She’s recorded pop and metal albums, even sung with John Wetton, Devin Townsend and Arjen Lucassen, but until now, she’d never made an acoustic record. Her latest, The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest, is an intimate recording that explores love and heartbreak. She gives Prog the lowdown on it and tackles those rumours about a new VUUR album.
Words: Dom Lawson Images: Mark Uyl
Anneke van Giersbergen finds her silver lining.
T
he life of a professional musician can seem pretty rosy from the outside. When the musician in question is Anneke van Giersbergen – voice of an angel, smile that would light up a windowless tomb – one could assume that the Dutch singer has been having the time of her life for more than two decades. With numerous solo albums and collaborative projects to her name, not least an enduring creative partnership with Devin Townsend, she’s become a much-loved and respected figure in the prog, alt-rock and metal worlds.
Unfortunately, real life has a tendency to interfere with just about everything, and van Giersbergen’s new album, The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest tells the rather more complicated and heartrending story of perhaps the toughest period in her career to date. Primarily acoustic, wonderfully delicate and full of songs of love and its highs and lows, it’s the most honest and intimate record she has ever made.
“There’s so much bullshit in the world, and now I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I’m releasing an album about love and I’m not sure that people will give a shit, to be honest!”
Of course, van Giersbergen’s last project was utterly different from the soft, thoughtful and elegant songs on The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest. Launched in 2016, VUUR was a fullbore prog metal band, steeped in technicality and bombast, but as fiercely melodic as one might expect from the singer. They released their debut album, In This Moment We Are Free – Cities, in the autumn of 2017, receiving widespread positive reviews. Unfortunately, as van Giersbergen recalls to Prog, the overall response from her fanbase was somewhat less enthusiastic, with many complaining that the new music didn’t “sound like The Gathering!” (the Dutch prog veterans, with whom she released six albums between 1995 and 2006). Meanwhile, a more personal storm was brewing.