(Thanks to Litho for Kingfisher Sky! This is excellent. Love the production too.)
That and the next one especially are some of my favorite albums. They never really managed to find the right audience, but it really works for me.
Yeah, you would think there had to be a market/audience...despite the fact they have their own identity, there's no reason why fans of bands like The Gathering or Within Temptation wouldn't also gravitate around them. I'd assume there wasn't a ton of promotion when they came out with their first album? I can tell you I didn't know the band at all until you posted about them. I guess back in 2007 I wasn't keeping track of new bands the same way as a few years prior (or now, for that matter!), so I wasn't quite as aware, but still.
Well, I didn't discover them right when they came out, but it was less than a year after that, and they were either marketed as being "the next Within Temptation", because their drummer used to be in that band, or "the next Evanescence", because, well, back then every rock/metal band with a female vocalist that wasn't Arch Enemy or Kittie was pitched as being like those two or Nightwish. And sure, they have aspects that might appeal to some WT or Evanescence fans, but there's a lot more to them, a subtle progginess sometimes close to some neo-prog bands, or even Porcupine Tree, a Tool-like brooding atmosphere and rhythmic complexity to some of the heavier riffs, drumming, and buildups to them. And on the opposite end, a rich and beautiful folky acoustic side that's challenging to even come up with the proper comparison for. The issue is that they touch on all those different elements, but don't really have enough of any particular one of them for people looking for a clone of any of those artists.