On August 22, 1995, Dutch band THE GATHERING released Mandylion through Century Media, and gothic metal changed shape overnight. Recorded at Woodhouse Studios in Hagen, Germany over just sixteen days with Siggi Bemm and Waldemar Sorychta, it was the first album with vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen — and one of the first records in the genre built entirely around a female voice rather than pairing one against a male death growl. Where their earlier work had been doom-laden and murky, Mandylion was spacious, atmospheric and genuinely melodic, its songs concerned with nature, memory and mysticism. "Strange Machines" and "Leaves" became unlikely hits in the Netherlands, carrying the album to number 20 on the Dutch chart and eventually to gold certification. It launched the band's most influential period and set a template that symphonic and gothic metal would follow for the next two decades.
