According to her latest “Anneke’s 60 Seconds Sunday” update, Anneke van Giersbergen (VUUR, The Gathering) is well into ‘phase 2’ of writing & recording her upcoming solo album. Though she has undertaken frequent solo acoustic tours (including a recent Dutch theatre tour with Ferry Duisjens and an 80’s covers tour a few years back), her last album under her own name was 2013’s Drive. Since, she has recorded full-length LP collaborations with Arjen Lucassen (The Diary by The Gentle Storm), Árstíðir (Verloren Verleden), and her ongoing progressive metal band VUUR (In This Moment We Are Free-Cities), and late last year released a live career retrospective with Residentie Orkest The Hague (Symphonized).
Now, for the first time, van Giersbergen is preparing a solo acoustic album. Recorded with engineer Gijs Coolen (with whom van Giersbergen collaborated on the aforementioned Drive), the upcoming album focuses on acoustic guitar and van Giersbergen’s unsurpassable voice while incorporating some additional instrumentation to fully realize a “very personal” set of new songs. Given her busy fall schedule touring North America with Delain & Amorphis—and the big 25th Anniversary shows in November—this new album will likely gestate a while longer before an early 2020 release. Expect updates via van Giersbergen’s weekly Twitter & Instagram videos.