ALMOST A DANCE

I'm afraid that most of what I wrote about the first one ALWAYS is just as true for the second one ALMOST A DANCE. It's not to be compared with THE GATHERING of later days. Still, I think it already shows the very first small steps into a future direction. The songs are more refined than on the debut and, quite as a surprise, the first clean male vocals appear. The female counterparts in the vocal area also gained both space and substance. Therefore - even though it is not my kind of music - I rate it higher than their debut.

Since I believe that the first two works of THE GATHERING should be seen as a package and divided from their later works, please allow me to repeat the PS I wrote in reviewing the first: PS: -> in this specific case, the rating can cause misunderstandings, so please note that POOR, ONLY FOR COMPLETIONISTS doesn't really fit. It is not poor for the genre (seen as a stand-alone work of it's own, assuming that this is the kind of music you like, the 3 stars would not be wrong) and it is definitely not for completionists of THE GATHERING. Rating it with one star only means more like: IT'S DIFFERENT AND NOT MY CUP OF TEA