Review of The Gathering - Monsters EP

It’s hard to do anything with an “EP” that consists merely of different versions of one song. The Gathering’s Souvenirs is easily in my upper echelon of albums for the year, but from my standpoint, there’s not much reason for a release like this. It’s not anything bad, per se, but it’s tiresome repetition and will probably only be enjoyed by The Gathering’s biggest fans. Spanning about twenty minutes with five versions of, you guessed it, the song Monsters, there’s nowhere near enough diversity between the mixes to keep my interest for the EP’s duration. I think possibly the only appeal something like this might have would be to a radio station for promotion. Maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings onto everyone else, but I truly can’t imagine what motivation any fans would have for going out of their way to listen to this. I’m not trying to bash the band at all here; the one song to be found is a good one from a great album, and none of the mixes are what I’d call bad, it’s just that when there’s so absolutely little to motivate me to listen to something, I tend not to be fond of it. To break it down track by track (since I’m running out of things to say about this), it begins with a radio edit of the song Monsters, which is a shortened cut of the album version. The second song is the Gallion Mix of the same song. It’s probably the most diverse version of the song to be found here with grinding bass, a heavy beat, and what sounds to me to be some tasteless mellotron use. Next comes the Gauzy Mix, and it’s hardly any different from the original at all. It seems like maybe the tempo is changed a tad bit, but otherwise it just has minor tonal differences. For the fourth song, it’s a dance mix called ‘Monsters Go Deep!’ with the exclamation point and all. By this point in the record, I’ve entered the realm of boredom almost completely. The final track actually redeems it a bit. It’s a promo demo mix. It’s close to the original but with some additional elements that add to the song. If you haven’t already picked up my feelings about this, I’ll say it very clearly: unless you’re a huge fan, don’t waste your time with this. All I can possibly think of doing with this is maybe tacking on a few of the songs if I ever burn a backup copy of Souvenirs. Besides that, it’s pretty much totally pointless.

Release Details

The Gathering

Monsters EP

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