The Dutchwoman is known for her versatility, her musical biography accordingly dazzling. Many will remember her as the frontwoman of The Gathering, and she has also drawn attention to herself through numerous collaborations with Devin Townsend, Arjen Lucassen, Anathema and Within Temptation. With her prog project Vuur (Dutch for "fire") and solo she rocks the stages of European clubs and has already released six albums under her own name. Why "The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest" has become less rocky and much more intimate instead, she explains in an eclipsed interview
eclipsed: What's the story behind your new album? Actually you wanted to make another Vuur album.
Anneke van Giersbergen: That's right. I had put the band together because I wanted to have my own heavy band. I always do quite a lot of different things at the same time and I wanted to bring some order into it. All the heavier and proggier stuff should be released under the Vuur label. It's true that my name is quite well known now. But promoting a new band name was more work than I had imagined. It took longer to get the band known, to write the first album. Sending the group on tour also took a lot of time, energy and money. So I wanted to get the second album going as soon as possible. To do that, I was on the road and away from home an extreme amount. That's one of the reasons why my marriage started to crumble. We came to a point where we were both shocked. After all, we've been together for more than 25 years! And all of a sudden, we drifted apart. But once we realized that, we also realized all that we had been through together. And we discovered that there was still a lot of love. That's when the songs came ..
eclipsed: But different from what you thought ...
Van Giersbergen: Everything I wrote were not metal songs. They were love songs, very soft stuff. So I dedicated myself to the music that was coming and stopped everything else. To write what I needed to write. To do that, I retreated to a cottage on the edge of the woods. I was able to focus on what was important at work and also rededicate myself to my family and marriage. It all started in 2018. The result is this album, which is still quite different from what I expected
eclipsed: Would you say it's your most personal album?
Van Giersbergen: Yeah, it's also something that surprised me. I always write about personal things. But since the new album is about this very special time in my life, I guess it is indeed my most personal
