ANATHEMA: A NATURAL DISASTER (2003)
1) Harmonium; 2) Balance; 3)
Closer; 4) Are You There?; 5) Childhood Dream; 6) Pulled Under At 2000 Metres A
Second; 7) A Natural Disaster; 8) Flying; 9) Electricity; 10) Violence.
This is the first Anathema album to feature three Cavanaghs at the same time:
Vincent and Danny are joined by third brother Jamie on bass — who, as it turns
out, did play with them in the earliest incarnation of the band, but left it
prior to any serious recording engagements. Now this is so much of a family
affair that drummer John Douglas humbly retreats back to his drums, leaving the
songwriting almost completely in the hands of the brothers; actually, Danny
takes almost exclusive credits for everything. (Which is all the more odd,
considering that he briefly left the band in 2002, joining Antimatter — and
then returned and became its dictatorial songwriter).
With Douglas out of the creative picture, the
songs begin leaving somewhat more of an impression; yet, at the same time, the
band really mellows out now — even
when the guitars are technically heavy, they are still tuned high as hell, and
cold, soft, static atmospheres, driven by acoustic guitars and electronics, now
serve as the default weapon at Anathema's disposal, with heavy passages only
introduced as quasi-climactic red lights, occasionally. Vincent's vocals also
continue to mellow out — by this time, memories of those days when he tried to
sound like a bleeding demon kid, pushed into a corner by squads of angels, are
worn pretty thin, and most of the time he just oozes eternal sadness without
any traces of anger or menace.
The good news is that they remember to try and
keep things spiced up. Thus, ʽBalance / Closerʼ (two separate tracks, but
united by a common theme) sees them taking lessons from Kid A, with multiple vocal overdubs and samples that create a
complex mosaic out of falsettos and breathy murmurs, and plenty of electronics
to place it in the middle of a cold, robotic atmosphere. ʽChildhood Dreamʼ is
a half-ambient, half-Gothic interlude with echoes of babies rising out of a
deep memory well. ʽPulled Under At 2000 Metres A Secondʼ is a speedy
disaster-rocker, bringing in a brief respite from all the slow psychological
moodiness — and, not surprisingly, sounding a hell of a lot like Pink Floyd's
ʽSheepʼ in the process. The title track is a doom-laden waltz sung by guest
star Anna Livingstone — and, with her high-pitched, trembling, fear-stricken
vocals and a particularly depressing set of keyboard and wah-wah guitar
overdubs, not surprisingly, sounding quite a bit like classic Portishead.
Finally, by the time we reach the end — a
ten-minute suite called ʽViolenceʼ whose only real bit of (musical) violence is
a relatively brief and loud rocking passage in the middle — we are out of
art-rock and deep into post-rock territory, heck, we might even be in frickin'
Angelo Badalamenti territory, considering how much that romantic piano melody
in the final movement reminds me of the Twin
Peaks theme. It's not at all bad, though, and, in all honesty, at this
point I am far more glad to get a «heavenly» finale, where peace and graceful
optimism is mixed with only a faint trace of sadness, from these guys, rather
than yet another reminder of how life sucks and how the very fact of one's
being here on Earth should already be regarded as punishment. Actually, you
could very well interpret ʽViolenceʼ as representing a bit of Armageddon, after
which everybody relaxes and enjoys eternal heavenly bliss, but that's okay, too
— in this case, they are at least willing to look into the eternally blissful
future, rather than remain forever cursed in the present, like a bunch of
Wandering Jews or something.
As a whole, the record has quite a decent feel
to it — all the stylistic twists and imitations of various styles at least seem
to guarantee that you probably will not be bored. That said, there is no
bypassing the usual limitation: every single one of these twists happens to
have already had far superior antecedents, and I do not see myself revisiting
this stuff much in the future as long as I still have access to all those
Floyd, Radiohead, and Portishead albums (or as long as I can still watch Twin Peaks, for that matter). The
problem with sadness and tragedy is that they only really work if they are
capable of pulling you way, way deep under the surface, but this here is more
like A Really Lightweight Disaster —
all the songs are so smooth, restrained, inobtrusive, carefully shorn of any
brusque rises or falls, that I cannot imagine the album working on any other
level than a simple sonic background. On the other hand, I guess if you are
holding a wake or something like that, it might make for a decent soundtrack:
not particularly cheesy and not particularly involving.
George, I realise that you won't reach the letter "G" until much later but I wonder whether you have enjoyed a Dutch band The Gathering. In particular their album Souvenirs was a fairly close analogue of A Natural Disaster (except that it was way way better). Until 1999-2003 they used to play more metal-related music and at that stage they also earned comparisons with Radiohead, Portishead and Massive Attack (They became pinkfloydesque earlier still in 1999 with that sprawling masterpiece HtMaP).
ReplyDeleteI was also never able to appreciate Anathema until I heard their later, lighter, happier album We're Here Because We're Here. Their 1998-2003 era didn't do much/anything for me.
How to Measure a Planet? is brilliant. Thanks for reminding me to listen to it again.
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