The Gentle Storm
| The Gentle Storm | |
|---|---|
The Gentle Storm live at the 2015 Wacken Open Air. From left to right: Marcela Bovio, Ed Warby, Anneke van Giersbergen and Johan van Stratum
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Netherlands |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2014–2016 (hiatus) |
| Labels | Inside Out Music |
| Associated acts | Ayreon, Stream of Passion, Star One, Guilt Machine, The Gathering, Anneke van Giersbergen |
| Website | arjenlucassen |
| Members |
Arjen Anthony Lucassen Anneke van Giersbergen |
The Gentle Storm is a Dutch musical project by singer and lyricist Anneke van Giersbergen and composer and musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen, founder and leader of other musical projects such as Star One, Ayreon, Guilt Machine and Ambeon. The duo has previously collaborated in Ayreon albums Into the Electric Castle and 01011001. The project's debut release, The Diary, was released on March 23, 2015 in Europe, and the following day in the US and consists of a double album, with the first part being a lighter, folk approach and the second one being more metal oriented.
The project was unveiled on 22 April 2014 and was described by Lucassen as "an epic double concept album, a combination of 'classical meets metal' and 'acoustic folk'." Lucassen's most recurrent collaborator Ed Warby will be featured once again on drums, and it will be his very first album featuring a double bass among the instruments. He confirmed that Johan van Stratum from his former band Stream of Passion would play bass on the album. Also, due to "unforeseen problems", Warby had to re-record all his drum parts in one day only. Other former collaborators will be back, such as Joost van den Broek (piano),Ben Mathot (violin) and Maaike Peterse (cello), along with two new guest instrumentalists: Hinse Mutter (double bass) and Jenneke de Jonge (French horn).
On September 2, 2014, Lucassen revealed that his collaboration with van Giersbergen was actually a new band, called The Gentle Storm. He stated that van Giersbergen would perform live with band next year, possibly ruling himself out of live shows.
On October 10, it was announced at The Gentle Storm's official Facebook profile that the album would be composed of two CDs with the same songs, but recorded in totally different arrangements. CD 1 will be "the 'Gentle' album, [...] all acoustic and folky with lots of exotic instruments", while CD2 will be "the 'Storm' album, [...] an all-out, bombastic orchestral metal album". The post also stated that there would be "plenty of progressive elements mixed in". The post invited fans to ask questions, and some of the answers revealed that the album is set for a March 2015 release, that the band will probably continue if the public reception is good enough and that the concept will be "a historic love-story". On 4 November, the album was revealed to be titled The Diary, with a cover art by Alexandra V. Bach, who also drew the art of A War of Our Own by Stream of Passion, another band started by Arjen, but that continued after he left it.
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