Superheat is more than a live album—it’s a snapshot of The Gathering at the height of their powers with Anneke van Giersbergen. The tracklist alone makes it worth the spin: a sharp, rock-oriented set where the band balances older hymns with their late-90s explorations. The DVD shows the full performance, but even on the CD you can feel the sweat, the stage lights, the enthusiasm running through the band. It’s alive in a way too many live albums are not.
The setlist is sharp, leaning into shorter, more rock-oriented songs that hit directly. “Liberty Bell” is the undeniable highlight. The riff is tight, the rhythm relentless, and Anneke van Giersbergen lifts it into the sky. Her voice is beautiful in the studio, yes, but live it becomes something else—elastic, intimate, fierce. Here she is the sun around which the whole show orbits. But the balance is key: “Strange Machines” and “Nighttime Birds” sit comfortably next to “My Electricity” and “Rescue Me.” Nothing feels out of place—the set flows like a single story, written across years but delivered with one pulse. It’s a testament to how consistent The Gathering’s songwriting had become in the Anneke years: doom-shaded early works and more delicate experiments don’t clash but converse, like different verses of the same song.
The crowd’s energy is present without overwhelming the sound; the band’s enthusiasm comes through in every riff and every groove. Too many live albums flatten performances into sterile reproductions, but Superheat carries heat in its name and in its delivery. You can feel the musicians enjoying themselves, pushing harder because they know this is being recorded for posterity.
Anneke inevitably steals the spotlight. The band is on fire—Frank Boeijen’s keyboards wrap the songs in atmosphere, René Rutten’s guitar balances weight and space, Hans Rutten keeps the pulse sharp—but it’s Anneke’s presence that makes Superheat glow. She doesn’t just sing; she commands and caresses, carrying the fragile and the heavy with equal grace. In tracks like “Rescue Me,” she makes vulnerability sound powerful. In “Liberty Bell,” she turns defiance into melody. There’s a reason this era of The Gathering is defined by her voice.
There are omissions. Fans would have loved to hear “Kevin’s Telescope” or “Eleanor” in this raw live form. The absence doesn’t ruin the album, but it does leave you wondering what might have been. That’s the main weakness: not the performance, not the recording, but the selection.
But that’s part of the record’s story too. Superheat is not exhaustive; it is selective, a curated window into a moment. And as such it succeeds. It shows The Gathering closing one chapter and readying themselves to write a new one. The balance between heaviness and delicacy here is no accident—it foreshadows the stylistic shifts just around the corner.
Many live albums serve as placeholders, stopgaps between “real” releases. Superheat avoids that fate. It feels necessary, not optional. It captures a band burning bright at the end of one era, about to step into another, with Anneke at her most radiant. Forgive the missing songs, forgive the small imperfections. What remains is pure, and it deserves to be remembered: a live album that truly feels alive.
