Some of my favorite cuts are from _Always_, one of my most beloved doom/death albums and a teenage favorite; here, a few key songs are reborn as gentle chamber rock pieces -- and they work perfectly. "Stonegarden" is perhaps my favorite Gathering song ever in its original form, and hearing it again like this is a real treat -- the lyrics might shock casual listeners who never realized how bittersweet and beautiful a song it was beneath the bellowing death growls. The other highpoint is the _Madylion_ material, once dense and heavy, and now softly atmospheric. These songs retain their hard driving quality, but sound more open and spacious. They breathe. The newer songs sound more like their originals, with instrumentation and arrangement very similar to what the band is doing presently.

For those of you who love The Gathering but don't want a simple compilation of the same old material (and for those of you who could never bring yourself to listen to the pre-Anneke albums), _Sleepy Buildings_ comes highly recommended. Listening to this, I feel like I’ve discovered an old friend hiding in plain sight.