Anneke van Giersbergen

Symphonized insideout Turbo-trilling lowlands diva goes fully orchestral.

For more than 20 years, vocally versatile Dutch diva Anneke van Giersbergen has voyaged far and wide across the mighty ocean of metal and prog, carving out a solo career alongside multiple collaborations with Devin Townsend, Robert Fripp, Napalm Death and more.

Recorded live with a full orchestra, Symphonized includes rearranged material from all chapters of the singer’s career, plus classy digressions like the previously unreleased pastoral folk ballad Zo Lief (‘So Sweet’) and Purcell’s aria When I Am Laid In Earth, aka Dido’s Lament. Two tracks from van Giersbergen’s new prog-metal project VUUR, launched last year, are arguably the least suited to orchestral makeover, their gnarly synchronised riffing now reborn as polite trilling and parping. But the seven-minute finalé Shores Of India, adapted from her 2015 collective project The Gentle Storm, is a magnificently overblown Taj Mahal of octavevaulting exotica that suggests Kate Bush channelling Rick Wakeman in full wizard-cape rock-opera mode. Respect.