Anneke van Giersbergen

Anneke van Giersbergen spent thirteen years as the voice of The Gathering, the Dutch band whose 1995 album Mandylion helped define what progressive metal could sound like when it stopped shouting and started thinking. She left in 2007 and has since released over twenty albums under her own name and through projects like Agua de Annique and VUUR, ranging from stripped-back acoustic records to full-bore metal. Her collaborator list reads like a who's who of heavy music's more interesting corners: Devin Townsend, Ayreon, Within Temptation, Napalm Death, Moonspell, Amorphis. In 2025, sold-out reunion shows celebrating Mandylion's thirtieth anniversary proved the demand for that original lineup had only grown. Her latest work, the trilogy album La Vie, La Mort, L'Amour, written in the wake of both her parents' deaths, arrives in parts through 2026.