LA VIE

Review originally posted at www.therocktologist.com

Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen announced a couple of months ago that she will be releasing a new album entitled 'La vie, la mort, l'amour', a collection of quite personal songs she wrote after her parents' passing, finding inspiration from the ones she loves, in a surely not-so-easy mourning period. However, that full-length album will be divided in three parts, three different EPs in which she will be dropping some of the songs, being 'La vie' the first one, already released in February 2025.

Here, she has shared the first four songs of that upcoming album, and as I expected, we can find here personal and intimate lyrics with strong and touching music that can move anyone, of course, the power of her voice is always a lethal tool. 'La vie' features four tracks that make a total time of 18 minutes.

The first one is a beauty named 'One More Nanosecond', gives me chills, because I think we all have been there, wishing to spend more time with our loved ones, dying to give everything to see them again, and keeping our precious memories. Anneke has an impressive sensitivity to transmit emotions with her voice, we know that since her times at The Gathering, and though time has passed, her voice and her power remain intact. Here she offers a kind of alternative pop rock song, with a catchy sound and a chorus we all might learn and sing. Of course, there is an explosion in this song where all the emotions are spread by the artist and taken by us, the listeners. Love this song.

'When I Die' starts with some programmed drums that reminded me of a popular Phil Collins' song haha, but well, here she openly speaks about death and what happens when you are gone, or at least what you imagine it will happen. It is common that we find moments of introspection when a person we love transcends, and in some cases, moments of creativity and inspiration. This is a nice song that has a soft sound, calm and melancholic for the first three minutes, then it explodes and becomes a bit heavier, the rock element is more evident and, of course, her voice and all the emotions are spread.

Art is love, and we are made of love, Anneke is not an exception and a clear example of it is 'More than a Thousand Words', a pop song that comes from the bottom of her heart and that speaks about how well we know our people, that we are capable of knowing how they are by looking at their eyes, nothing more. Besides the "normal" instruments, here we can also find violin and winds, which made the experience richer.

The last track of this EP is 'Heal me', and I love it because in a mourning period it is normal to feel trapped in darkness, and normal to look for help in order to feel better. Yeah, death, just like life, has a seesaw of emotions and we must embrace them, then, relief will find us sooner than later.

Anneke and her voice will always touch me, and I am grateful for that. Now, let's wait for the upcoming bunch of songs, the upcoming EP.

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