Anathema: The Optimist

ANATHEMA: THE OPTIMIST (2017)

1) 32.63N 117.14W; 2) Leaving It Behind; 3) Endless Ways; 4) The Optimist; 5) San Francisco; 6) Springfield; 7) Ghosts; 8) Can't Let Go; 9) Close Your Eyes; 10) Wildfires; 11) Back To The Start.

Leave it to Anathema to be inspired by the sleeve of one of their own albums (A Fine Day To Exit), enough to base the entire concept of another album on it. Allegedly, The Optimist is a musical saga whose protagonist is the unseen car driver from A Fine Day To Exit — last seen on the Silver Strand Beach in San Diego County, whose coordinates form the title of the introduc­tory track. That record was made in a transitional era, when Anathema had already largely broken out of their metal carapace, but had not yet seen the light of Heaven, so from a purely theoretical standpoint, it sort of makes sense to revisit an old friend — whom we'd earlier left behind in deep depression and disillusionment — and introduce him to the sort of Platonic bliss in which the Cavanaghs have been dwelling since 2010.

From a practical point, though, I am keeping my promise: I gave Distant Satellites a thumbs down and swore that any future album of theirs that would sound more or less the same way would never hope for a better rating. With the melodic and atmospheric qualities of The Opti­mist, I have no choice but to deliver upon the oath. This is approximately one hour of very gene­ric late-period Anathema music; the only new thing that it offers is a series of programmed per­cussion tracks (you will hear one right from the start, on ʽLeaving It Behindʼ), an element that seems completely gratuitous in this kind of music — but I suppose that Anathema just have to show the kids that they, too, can use computers.

Other than that, this is just another day in the life of Father Vincent and Father Daniel as they make another sermon for the already converted. You know what to expect: Beautiful Romantic Piano Phrasing, multiplied by Inspired Heavenly Vocalizing, augmented with High-Pitched Angelic Guitar Wailing, aggrandized by Sky-Soaring Symphonic Strings. (This is the complete package, and it is only present on select tracks, like the title one, but everything else just reads like a partial deconstruction of the complete package). Hardcore fans will be delighted; myself, I only see total stagnation and self-repetition — at least stylistic, although I'm pretty sure there are quite a few melodic self-rip-offs as well.

I have read reviews of the album that delight in giving out detailed descriptions for all the tracks; I can honestly offer no new insights, just state that everything that you hear here has already been done before — be it the tearful Lee Douglas-delivered ballad (ʽClose Your Eyesʼ), or the moody piano-based instrumental fugue (ʽSan Franciscoʼ), or the grand pathetic finale (ʽBack To The Startʼ). I'm happy for their imaginary character whom they decided to return to the right track and set straight, but I'm also feeling a bit cheesy about this. And I am honestly tired of the preachiness: there is only so many times you get to hear "stop feeling dead inside tonight!" (ʽLeaving It Be­hindʼ) before you get the urge to punch the preacher in the throat. I am not feeling dead inside, and even if I were, it would take far more than a third-rate Anathema album to make me stop. Signed, sealed, and delivered: thumbs down.

Anathema: Distant Satellites

ANATHEMA: DISTANT SATELLITES (2014)

1) The Lost Song, Pt. 1; 2) The Lost Song, Pt. 2; 3) Dusk (Dark Is Descending); 4) Ariel; 5) The Lost Song, Pt. 3; 6) Anathema; 7) You're Not Alone; 8) Firelight; 9) Distant Satellites; 10) Take Shelter.

From the band's own statement on their latest studio offering: "Distant Satellites is the culmination of everything Anathema has been working up to so far in our musical path. It contains almost every conceivable element of the heartbeat of Anathema music that it is possible to have. There is beauty, intensity, drama, quietude, and extra musical dimensions that the band have previously only hinted at".

Do you smell bullshit? I'm pretty sure I smell bullshit. While I do admit that Anathema's journey from black doom prophets to harbingers of heavenly bliss has its elements of uniqueness, «extra musical dimensions» is really not the kind of phrase that I would ever allow myself to use in order to describe their music. And considering that Weather Systems was, after all, mostly treading the same path that they had already chosen with We're Here, I have very grave prior doubts that they might have seriously expanded on that atmosphere and musical message, unless they'd once again decided upon changing it to something completely different.

They did not, though, and basically, Distant Satellites is just an echo of Weather Systems — and a fairly boring one at that. I mean, how could it not be, if even its title has the same structure and associations (aren't «distant satellites» used to monitor «weather systems»?), and its first song comes in two parts (okay, three, but the third one is far removed), and the first part is all loud and epic and the second part is all romantic and sentimental? The only reason to make a record like this is if, somehow, you were dissatisfied with its predecessor — and wanted to correct its mis­takes. But I did not notice much correction going on here; on the contrary, this time they managed to make an album completely devoid of any particularly interesting moments. The whole thing is «mature-Anathema-by-numbers», completely safe and predictable.

There may be a bit more electronic elements here than usual, particularly in the second half of the album (ʽYou're Not Aloneʼ, title track), implying that they are still being spiritually dominated by Radiohead — Kid A and In Rainbows both come strongly to mind. But the digital sounds are neither used in an innovative manner nor do they make any obvious artistic sense, other than to confirm that this band does live in the 21st century and that God has not, as of yet, indicated his opposition to the use of integrated circuits to sing His glory. And the rest is the rest — romantic piano, lush powerful strings, exalted vocals from the Cavanaghs and lyrical vocals from Lee Douglas, and praise of Love Eternal that has no choice but to shine through the darkness, espe­cially if you've been living on Prozac for the past ten years or so.

Now I know that fans of the band could easily accuse me of being unfairly biased here — after all, even if the record lacks innovation, that does not mean that the Cavanaghs have not written a new set of melodies, completed a new set of arrangements for them, and, after all, if I can give high ratings to three same-sounding AC/DC records in a row, or three same-sounding power-pop albums in a row, what is so wrong about Anathema doing the same thing? The answer, my friends, is wobbling in the wind: Anathema is a band that pursues far more lofty ideals and de­mands for far deeper emotional reactions than AC/DC or Cheap Trick or The Bats — every single Anathema album is supposed to either plunge in you the depths of utmost despair, or to raise you up to the heights of spiritual catharsis and bliss. And when you see lofty goals like these pursued with blatantly lazy, unchanging, predictable means, album after album after album, the result is anything but a series of profound epiphanies — more like having to go to confession and enduring yet another predictable session with your local priest, who keeps asking you the same questions and giving you the same answers. It ain't fun, it ain't useful, all in all, it's just another brick in the wall.

Unfortunately, from the looks of it, this seems like a formula which Anathema have found addic­tive — with the band already past twenty years of existence, and most of its members way past 40, I would be extremely surprised to see them turn away and explore a genuinely new direction any time soon (especially considering that, in all fairness, they have already come a very long way from where they started). Those who have honestly admired and loved this new style will have plenty more delightful fruits to reap in the coming years, but I give the album a thumbs down and will give any following album that sounds like this a thumbs down as well — I sort of see the two opposing musical poles of religious ectasy as represented by St Matthew Passion and All Things Must Pass, respectively, and records that try to sound like a hybrid between the two usually end up compromising and embarrassing the ideals of either, so no more, thank you.

Anathema: Universal

ANATHEMA: UNIVERSAL (2013)

1) Untouchable, Part 1; 2) Untouchable, Part 2; 3) Thin Air; 4) Dreaming Light; 5) Lightning Song; 6) The Storm Before The Calm; 7) Everything; 8) A Simple Mistake; 9) The Beginning And The End; 10) Universal; 11) Closer; 12) A Natural Disaster; 13) Deep; 14) One Last Goodbye; 15) Flying; 16) Fragile Dreams; 17) Panic; 18) Emotional Winter / Wings Of God; 19) Internal Landscapes; 20) Fragile Dreams 2.

The title and track listing for Anathema's first live album may be a little confusing. Apparently, it was first released under the title Untouchable, on four sides of vinyl, with 12 tracks in all. Later, the entire concert, recorded at the Theatre of Philippopolis in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (don't ask me why, but I guess it has something to do with traditional Eastern European and Soviet enthusiasm for mass-marketed Crunchy Spiritual Rock), was released on DVD and Blu-ray under the title of Universal — and some of the video editions also featured the entire audio of the concert, which comes up to a whoppin' two hours and sixteen minutes of Anathema bliss. This is the edition I will be talking about: I couldn't bear watch the entire show (spirituality overload!), but I did listen to the entire concert, though, frankly, I'm not sure why.

Because even with the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra accompanying these guys, their live shows (at this point, at least — I have no idea about the early doom metal days) merely recreate the studio originals, as close as possible, which is still not close enough if you remember that they have no Steven Wilson with them on stage. Some of the trickiest studio overdubs cannot be recre­ated at all (for instance, the «electric storm» in ʽThe Storm Before The Calmʼ, here pretty much shorn of the electronics that made that instrumental interlude so great), and those that can... well, since this is not about improvisation, or about toughening up the original sound, or about giving the songs additional dimensions, all you can say is, "gee, well, at least here's proof that somebody actually loves Anathema!" Because the audience does go wild.

At the very least, they could have arranged an interesting setlist — seeing as how Anathema's entire career gradually and logically went from «pitch black» to «moody dark» to «light angelic», it would have been a great idea to arrange the whole show in precisely that order: start off with some early metal, then gradually lighten up and land the show with ʽUniversalʼ or any of those other anthemic we-saw-the-light tracks. Instead, they do exactly the opposite: the first half of the show consists of almost nothing but songs from the last two albums, and the second half consists of a bunch of earlier hits, so that you start out with hope and finish with despair — how rational is that, given that the band's current agenda is to give hope rather than take it away? I admit that there are no reasons whatsoever to expect particularly intelligent decisions about musical logis­tics from a band as naively idealistic as Anathema, but come on guys — do not undermine your own artistic ideology at least.

No comments on individual songs whatsoever, but I am glad that the album is an official ack­nowledgement of the fact that ʽFragile Dreamsʼ is this band's quintessential signature song for all times: not only do they finish the show with it, but they play two versions of it (first the reworked soft one and then the original hard one). Allegedly the fans were quite happy about it. Everything was nice, the vibes were great, the band members were very polite and friendly, we all went to Heaven and back, and the degree of spiritual enlightenment in the country of Bulgaria tempora­rily went through the roof, even though the ancient Theatre of Philippopolis probably does not have a roof, which makes things even easier. Bottomline: you probably had to be there to make the experience worthwhile, but then why on Earth should anyone bother going to an Anathema con­cert? They don't even provide space for a mosh pit or anything.

Anathema: Weather Systems

ANATHEMA: WEATHER SYSTEMS (2012)

1) Untouchable, Part 1; 2) Untouchable, Part 2; 3) The Gathering Of The Clouds; 4) Lightning Song; 5) Sunlight; 6) The Storm Before The Calm; 7) The Beginning And The End; 8) The Lost Child; 9) Internal Landscapes.

We got the point last time, but perhaps we were not fully convinced, so here are the born-again Cavanaghs with yet another heavenly oratorio on your front lawn — and this time they unleash the full force of the Light upon your unholy skeptical ass. From beginning to end, Weather Systems is as straightforward an album about the temporary nature of earthly life and the imma­nent nature of heavenly existence as they come: and if you needed scientific proof of that, they even enlist Joe Geraci, an original survivor with a near-death experience, for a brief recital on the last track. It's a more or less routine story of experiencing white light and transcendental beauty before being brought back to life, and the only thing it does is to reinforce the impression that the Cavanaghs are no longer content with constructing the musical equivalent of Eternal Bliss, but that they actively believe in it and want you to believe in it, too.

The problem is, it would be easier for me to get manipulated into this if it weren't for that subtle, but pervasive aspect of cheapness that has always accompanied every single Anathema album, from the early doom metal days all the way to this «let the light eternal chase away the darkness supreme!» transformation. In their zealous verve to make us all fall on our knees and pray to the Great White, even if its name is Nameless rather than Jesus, they forgot — or, rather, they pro­bably did not even begin to remember — that the best recruiters are those that work over their prey in indirect ways, rather than going for one frontal assault after another. Thus, although they still take plenty of cues from the post-rock movement and they might be technically getting better at this with each new record, I still find far more genuine spirituality in the ambiguous sound­scapes of Sigur Rós or Godspeed You! Black Emperor than in Anathema's pompous chorales ("Love is the life breath of all I see / Love is true life inside of me").

Musically, we are still on the same level — largely static compositions, revolving around one endlessly repeated phrase, often with a crescendo effect achieved in the same manner as GY!BE do this, but with less diverse instrumentation. This time, the emphasis seems to be more firmly placed on swift, perfectly picked acoustic arpeggiated chords, starting with the very first track (ʽUntouchable, Part 1ʼ) and reappearing quite frequently: a good sound, but neither innovative in any manner nor responsible for any particularly memorable themes. Piano-based songs (ʽThe Beginning And The Endʼ) are more rare, but that does not in any way improve their quality (all the piano playing is extremely simplistic and, more than usual, seems to be getting in our face: «see? we're playing piano! not any of these darn Casios! accept no substitutes for classically-approved heavenly beauty!»).

I count precisely one track whose musical features managed to attract my attention: ʽThe Storm Before The Calmʼ, allegedly an allegory of the death experience, after a tense, cold introduction transforms into an instrumental jam with a cool use of electronics, as the main piano/bass/drums track is enhanced with buzzing electro-static tones and wind-imitating white noise. Midway into the song, it goes away and is replaced with the usual boring attempt at an orgasmic crescendo, but that three-minute part in the middle is arguably more sonically inventive than any other piece of music created by Anathema in the I-saw-the-light period: as a musical analogy of a «storm», it is quite original, making you feel trapped in an electric field that just went crazy on you.

Other than that, it's just spiritual business as usual. Interestingly, they let Lee Douglas take more lead vocals than usual: she even takes solo lead vocal on ʽLightning Songʼ, and is generally more audible on tracks where she duets with Vincent — strange that they did not do this before, since her vocal tone certainly correlates better with «heavenly» than Vincent's (she is no Sandy Denny, though, and she usually stays in a lower range that is perfect for folk-rock, but probably not for Heavenly Exaltation). This, and the increased function of acoustic picking, and the occasionally inventive use of electronics all suggest that the band is still searching, which is a good thing: I do retain the right to be generally unimpressed by their methods of search, or the territory to which the search is confined — but I also have to admit that, by their own standards, Weather Systems is a small step forward rather than a clear-cut case of creative stagnation, so if you are already a fan, and if textbookish images of Paradise™ suit your feelings just fine, this record will be as in­dispensable to you as, say, Time Out Of Mind would be to a Dylan fan.

Anathema: Falling Deeper

ANATHEMA: FALLING DEEPER (2011)

1) Crestfallen; 2) Sleep In Sanity; 3) Kingdom; 4) They Die; 5) Everwake; 6) J'Ai Fait Une Promesse; 7) Alone; 8) We The Gods; 9) Sunset Of Age.

Another attempt at re-writing their legacy (as if somebody really cared), this relatively short album finally finds Anathema doing exactly the kind of thing they should have done much earlier: going all the way back to their beginnings as a doom metal band and reinventing those old black tunes in the vein of their new neo-symph-prog image. And although Steven Wilson is no longer with them to lend a helping hand directly, they retain the affiliation with the Kscope label; also, their new engineer is Andrea Wright, who'd had a long history of work with everybody from Black Sabbath to Marillion to Clinic to Coldplay, and could certainly get the job done well on an album that places its entire trust in atmosphere.

To complete the picture, the band secures the services of veteran progger Dave Stewart, formerly of Egg, Hatfield & The North, National Health, and Bruford fame — the man used to play key­boards for some of the most twisted and adventurous prog bands in the Golden Age, but the 21st century largely sees him as a strings arranger for various neo-prog outfits, including, of course, Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson, from whom he was «passed down» to Anathema. Actually, he'd already worked for them on We're Here, but on that album, the strings were nowhere near as prominent as they are on these remakes — you might as well credit the record to «Anathema Feat. Dave Stewart», or you might even reverse that order.

The result... well, the result could have been great if the songs we are talking about were great songs in the first place, but they weren't, so it couldn't. Atmospheric background remains atmos­pheric background, no matter whether you are constructing it with heavy metal guitars or pianos and strings, and I cannot say that, having been transferred to a new medium, they managed to uncover previously concealed plains of spirituality or valleys of bliss. (For the record, only a few of the tunes come from LPs like Serenades or The Silent Enigma; most are taken over from even more obscure early EPs that I have not talked about or even heard, so it is perfectly possible that some of the songs began life as embarrassing trash heaps, before they were all recast in this single mold. I doubt it, though).

It's not as if these are lazy recreations or anything: no, the songs are completely reworked, and the new arrangements are often more complex and sprawling than they used to be — ʽJ'Ai Fait Une Promesseʼ, for instance, which used to be a brief non-metal acoustic interlude, is stripped of its original vocal (by one of the band's lady friends called Ruth) and recast as a pseudo-baroque chamber orchestra performance; and ʽAloneʼ from The Silent Enigma gains at least a couple extra levels of sonic depth, even if you only consider the resplendent, deeply resonant production on the acoustic guitar sound alone — not to mention all the rich overlays. Next to these recrea­tions, the originals sound like pale sketches, and then, on top of the cake, you get the heavenly vocals of Anneke van Giersbergen (fresh out of The Gathering and ready to grace some former fellow competitors with her cordial presence) on two of the tracks.

This should all be very rich and rewarding, yet, as it happens with Anathema so much more often than I'd like to, it still ends up plain and «pretty» from a textbookish point of view, enough to make for some tasteful background muzak, but never memorable in the least, since everything flows so smoothly. The only track where I am ready to accept that they did a stellar job is the album closer, ʽSunset Of Ageʼ, extracted from its original metal sheen and recast as a slightly Eastern-influenced mix of turbulent strings and wildly unleashed colorful electric guitars: the coda is a supercool bit of sturm-und-drang that will at least perform the good deed of kicking you awake from the slumber in which you have most likely been finding yourself for the previous half hour. Nothing else even begins to approach this performance's intensity.

One curious feeling I have noticed is that the songs have largely been remade in keeping with the band's new-found spirit of calm, sad optimism — even tracks like ʽCrestfallenʼ, beginning with telling lyrics such as "I cry a tear of hope but it is lost in helplessness, the darkness eats away at the very embers of my blah blah blah", use tonalities and timbres that suggest a streak of light ahead, and the formerly growling vocals have been replaced by high-pitched «whisper vocals» (reminiscent of recent post-blackgaze artists like Alcest) that clearly suggest a change of scenery: used to be Mordor, now it's more like Lothlorien. Problem is, your everyday routine in Lothlorien is hardly more of an adventure than said routine in Mordor — you just do your whining and com­plaining in a more gallant manner, but who ever said that a melancholic elf is more of a show-maker by definition than a pissed-off goblin? In a contest of mediocre songwriting, I'd probably find myself pining for the goblin anyway.

Anathema: We're Here Because We're Here

ANATHEMA: WE’RE HERE BECAUSE WE’RE HERE (2010)

1) Thin Air; 2) Summernight Horizon; 3) Dreaming Light; 4) Everything; 5) Angels Walk Among Us; 6) Presence; 7) A Simple Mistake; 8) Get Off, Get Out; 9) Universal; 10) Hindsight.

Seven years, apparently, is what it takes to come back to the light — a spiritual journey under­taken in order to finally find an answer to the question that had been bugging the Cavanaghs ever since they began to think of themselves as artists: «what the hell are we doing here at all?» And now, in 2010, that answer is staring right at you from the front cover. No, they did not exactly find Jesus (although that, too, could be suspected because of the walking-on-water image), but at least they found Steven Wilson, who is a much better mixer than Jesus ever was, and who could steer them in the blessed direction more efficiently than any religious guru.

I gotta say, I can't help admiring these guys for making the transition. Nothing is easier these days than cling to an established formula to the death, and there will always be a market for new and new albums about disillusionment, desperation, and dead brides as long as there remains a market for anything musical at all. But somehow, upon completing A Natural Disaster, the Cavanaghs decided that it was time to break the circle, and begin looking for positive answers, no matter how deeply entrenched they'd become in transcendental misery. The prevailing mood still retains a tinge of sadness, but now it comes mixed with a «glorious» feel that begins with the album's title, song names like ʽAngels Walk Among Usʼ, and music that borrows more from the post-rock idiom of Godspeed You! Black Emperor than the dark musings of Floyd and Radiohead, albeit still very much dependent on vocal work (especially now that drummer John Douglas' sister, Lee Douglas, joins the band as a permanent new member — more often double-tracking or backing up Vincent's vocals for extra angelic effect rather than singing lead).

Steven Wilson, who was already beginning to make headlines as the remixing wonder of the century (producing remixes of classic Caravan, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull albums, among other things), operates in George Martin capacity for this record — his mix ensures that none of the instruments, including plenty of acoustic and electric guitar overdubs as well as grand pianos and electronic strings, merge together in one big sonic glop, which is a fairly common bane for many neo-prog artists. The underlying idea was to make a record that, through sheer sonic bliss, would remind one of the Eternal Bliss, and, technically speaking, that goal was achieved. On the very first track, ʽThin Airʼ, the band presents an impressive cobweb of sound, or, should I rather say, a mighty racetrack of sound, with guitars, keyboards, and vocals all racing parallel to each other, gradually rising in a powerful crescendo — and the song's lyrics complete the rebirth-in-death of the Anathema protagonist, who is now only too happy to join his beloved in death under «a promise of heaven».

So much for the good stuff: We're Here represents a brave new beginning, and its concept is immaculately planned and executed. The problem is that, unfortunately, not even Steven Wilson is capable of turning the Cavanaghs into exciting and/or inspiring songwriters. The keys and moods may have changed, but the basic premise remains the same: each of the songs is built around one (sometimes two, if the track is long enough to allow for a key change midway through) base chord sequence, which is then milked for trance-inducing emotional splendor, usually by having it played by three or four instruments at once. These songs are quite lengthy (5 to 7 minutes on average), and the only dynamic development that one usually gets out of them is the crescendo effect (on about half of the songs, but reaching a proverbial climax on ʽUniversalʼ). Ironically, though, once again they sound in this like a poorboy equivalent of somebody else — for instance, the above-mentioned GY!BE, who must have undoubtedly been one of the crucial influences on the album (even in its purely ambient-atmospheric interludes with spoken philo­sophical overdubs, like ʽPresenceʼ, featuring a metaphysical lesson from Stan Ambrose).

I understand what it is they are trying to do, and, once again, can bring myself to respect it (espe­cially because they do not stoop to, say, generic Christian rock), but not a single one of these songs is capable of actually moving me the way that, say, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass can — in fact, whenever I try to stay focused on any of this stuff, I get proverbially bored, just because each new song becomes fully predictable in a matter of seconds. At least GY!BE had a knack for seeking out truly excellent chord sequences and then giving them the full royal treatment: the Cavanaghs, in comparison, settle for palliatives (that Chopinesque piano riff on ʽUniversalʼ sounds nice, but it never really goes anywhere or resolves itself into anything worthy of attention) and make blissful muzak that never reaches the epic heights of GY!BE and is even less capable of competing with classic prog.

I realize that such is their schtick, and that, having spent all their previous career building up largely static sound panoramas, they have no reason to change that approach to something more dynamic even now that they have seen the light. But that does not mean that we really have to settle for anything less than the best there is, and the only thing that is truly «best» about this new "life is eternal!" approach of theirs is Steven Wilson's mix. It also goes without saying that this whole new metaphysical twist is every bit as unoriginal and clichéd as their «dying bride»-era creations. Last spoken lines of the album: "And if you could love enough, you would be the hap­piest and most powerful person in the world" — excuse me?.. Okay, okay, so they have this «you can never say too much about the need for love» agenda now, but couldn't they at least say it in a slightly more elaborate musical language? 

Anathema: Hindsight

ANATHEMA: HINDSIGHT (2008)

1) Fragile Dreams; 2) Leave No Trace; 3) Inner Silence; 4) One Last Goodbye; 5) Are You There?; 6) Angelica; 7) A Natural Disaster; 8) Temporary Peace; 9) Flying; 10) Unchained (Tales Of The Unexpected).

After the release of A Natural Disaster, Anathema took a long break from releasing new LPs, but this seems to have been largely caused by technical reasons — such as the closing down of their record label, Music For Nations, upon which they found it hard to negotiate another contract, seeing as how their albums had always had only a minor cult following, and even all that gloomy Floyd/Radiohead vibe did not manage to attract a sufficient number of Thom Yorke devotees. (Should have known better than to establish their initial reputation as a death metal band — it's like a porn actor's struggle to start a new life in mainstream cinema). They even had to resort to Internet publishing at one time, recording and promoting occasional songs on a minor basis, but eventually managed to capture the attention of Kscope, a small label originally established by Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree and largely used to promote «neo-prog» artists, a role for which the new weep-and-moan-based Anathema fully qualified.

Their first project for the new label was, however, quite tentative: a compilation of re-recorded older «classics» in de-electrified versions — acoustic guitars, pianos, strings (including heavy participation of the band's friend Dave Wesling on cello). A symbolic move on their part, it was clearly supposed to confirm and strengthen their conversion to symph-prog values, focusing all our attention on the Ethereal Beauty of the world-weary melodies instead of the power roar of the metal guitars — sure it was highly restricted on the past two or three records already, but this is the first time that they have completely eliminated anything that could even vaguely remind us of their metallic past. Here, you are simply expected to sit back, relax, wallow in the sorrow, and appreciate them for the tragic romantic melodicists that they are.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that the elimination of electric distortion has resulted in making their songs better or worse, with one exception — I am fairly certain that I would have thought much less of ʽFragile Dreamsʼ, had I first heard it in this toothless arrangement. Wesling captures the spirit of the original riff just fine on his cello, but it was the power onslaught of guitars and drums that truly made it work, and this pensive, indecisive reimagination of the theme just guts it out: when we begin working in «piano trio» mode or something like that, you expect far more depth and melodic complexity, and that is hardly Anathema's forte.

Everything else, despite all the rearrangement work, is just about as good or bad as its former electric counterparts — I cannot say that Wesling's cello or anything else brings out any particu­larly subtle / hidden nuances in the tracks. Actually, it is puzzling why they decided to concen­trate on relatively recent material from the past two albums, what with its being «soft» in the first place: this version of ʽA Natural Disasterʼ, for instance, is practically indistinguishable from the original, and the fact that ʽAre You There?ʼ now has a prominent acoustic guitar part replacing cloudy synthesizers changes nothing about the basic emotional perception of the ballad. It would have been far more fun if they'd returned all the way back to Serenades, and offered us some recreations of their heaviest melodies — but the earliest reinvented song here is ʽAngelicaʼ from Eternity, which already heralded their transformation.

As is usual in such cases, the album does feature exactly one new song, to give a bit of an incen­tive for veteran fans — ʽUnchainedʼ is another acoustic guitar / piano / cello ballad with an over­all pretty sound, but hardly worth getting particularly excited about. And speaking in general, I am not really disappointed, because everything is executed in Anathema's usual good taste. Clever mixing, giving each instrument its own voice; restrained, pleasant lead vocals with a touch of nobility and no signs of crude emotional manipulation; excellent string parts — all in all, this is yet another high-quality mood soundtrack to that never ending funeral party. It's just that, plugged or unplugged, Anathema have always been and will probably forever be a band that is way too trapped by formula and way too unencumbered by artistic imagination.

Anathema: A Natural Disaster

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.

Anathema: A Fine Day To Exit

ANATHEMA: A FINE DAY TO EXIT (2001)

1) Pressure; 2) Release; 3) Looking Outside Inside; 4) Leave No Trace; 5) Underworld; 6) (Breaking Over The) Barriers; 7) Panic; 8) A Fine Day To Exit; 9) Temporary Peace.

Normally, an album titled A Fine Day To Exit would probably be expected from a band that de­cides to call it a day — but we are dealing with Anathema here, a band for whom calling it a day is pretty much a profession, except they're calling it a day for humanity as a whole, rather than just their own sorry asses. So no, they are not disbanding: this is merely the next installation in the ongoing series of «numb and number», and, unfortunately, not an improvement on the flaws of Judgement, but rather an exacerbation of said flows.

By this time, it seems like they might be taking their clues from Radiohead rather than Pink Floyd, with most of the songs showing a quiet, tired, enfeebled type of depression and disillusionment, as conveyed by weighted-down vocals, morose piano lines, and atmospheric use of electronics, although not enough of the latter to suggest interference with Kid A: rather, it is the alt-rock Bends version and the art-rock OK Computer version of Radiohead that serve as primary cue-setters. Slow, atmospheric, depressing songs, only occasionally livened up by faster tempos that still preserve the same atmosphere (ʽPanicʼ) and always suggesting being trapped without any hope of escape in the deep, dark well of one's own subconscious, except that, unlike Radiohead, lyrics-wise they are still unable to escape the «always talking with the ghost of my brutally muti­lated lover» cliché.

That cliché is, however, far from the worst problem of the album — the worst problem is that most of the songs are honestly no good. Like that Radiohead atmosphere or not, it was always supported by radical, challenging, or at least instantly memorable musical ideas. Here, though, as the Cavanagh brothers are assisted by drummer John Douglas in their songwriting duties, I fail to find anything that would sound genuinely unusual or memorable. The songs take too much time to do too few interesting things. The pianos and acoustic guitars sound nice, but do not take any serious chances outside of the predictably comfortable zones of adult-pop balladeering and dark (or not too dark) folk strumming. And the electric guitars, when they do come in, largely sound like any average alt-rock band would sound — basic grungy patterns that even Radiohead had largely left behind by 1995.

The very first song on the album, ʽPressureʼ, which was also released as a single, begins in full-out ʽKarma Policeʼ mode, jamming your ears in between big echoey drums and forcefully hit piano chords, but this all just seems like a moody setup for the vocal melody, and the vocal melody seems like just a setup for the chorus, with all the stakes placed on the culmination of "I don't care where you go, you won't get away from me", and, frankly, it's not much of a culmina­tion — the singer sounds so bored with himself, these words resonate like an empty threat. If there is any pressure, it's hardly above permissible levels. I can understand why the vocals never shoot past the murmur level, or why there is no shrill guitar solo to juice up the crescendo, but see, these are fairly ordinary musical moves that they use to create the atmosphere, and if you're ma­king an ordinary song, you are at least entitled to juice it up with ordinary, but efficient musical clichés. «Tastelessly exciting» takes preference over «tastefully boring», and it's not even all that tasteful to begin with (though it cannot be said that they are embarrassing themselves with this attitude, either, like they often did on the early albums).

And if that's ʽPressureʼ for us, then what about ʽReleaseʼ? Surely this title should be concealing some climactic denouement of its predecessor? Reveal a shattering musical explosion? It begins promising enough — a thin, sharp acoustic guitar tone, lightly attenuated with a simmering electronic pattern; eventually, more and more synth overdubs start piling up in anticipation of the climax... and that climax? A weak, monotonous texture of funky electric guitar overdubs merging in a generic alt-rock grind. Well... like "pressure", like "release".

The record continues in the same mediocre manner, alternating heavier and lighter moments in such a smooth and polite manner that you hardly ever notice the transitions, and offering us vocal parts that are so gentlemanly refined that I almost begin to wonder — couldn't it have been more effective for them to go back to growling vocals? Probably not, but this is just way too soporific for my aural nerves. And almost as if they wanted to really rub it in, the last track (ʽTemporary Peaceʼ) seems like a bad parody on a conceptual post-rock suite: a moody, hookless Gothic ballad part, followed by a couple minutes of seawaves crashing upon the shore (wait, did I say "cra­shing?"... nothing on this album is "crashing"... more like "swishing"...), followed by a couple more minutes of gravel-crushing footsteps on the shore and disjoint pieces of recorded conver­sation, followed by a few minutes of total silence, and then followed with a two-chord acoustic ditty with seemingly improvised «comical» lyrics ("Morten Harket's brand new go cart / Foul mouthed and smelling of onions"). Actually, the acoustic ditty might be the best part of the album because it is at least the only thing about it that is not so totally safe and predictable.

So, unfortunately, a thumbs down — even if this is not a stereotypically «bad» record, this is one of those cases where I'd rather sit through Aerosmith's Pump or Britney Spears' In The Zone, be­cause those records, bad as they are, at least give you food for thought and impressions to keep. A Fine Day To Exit, on the contrary, shows that the boys mean good (they are actually trying to find some serious justification for being so depressed), but they don't really have the means, such as brilliant songwriting and inventive arrangements, to do good.

Anathema: Judgement

ANATHEMA: JUDGEMENT (1999)

1) Deep; 2) Pitiless; 3) Forgotten Hopes; 4) Destiny Is Dead; 5) Make It Right (F.F.S.); 6) One Last Goodbye; 7) Parisienne Moonlight; 8) Judgement; 9) Don't Look Too Far; 10) Emotional Winter; 11) Wings Of God; 12) Anyone, Anywhere; 13) 2000 & Gone; 14) Transacoustic*.

Okay, this one's no fun at all. The band's original bass player and one of its chief songwriters, Duncan Patterson, is out of the band to focus on his personal projects (the latest of which, ironi­cally, takes its name from Patterson's finest moment with Anathema — Alternative 4); and his replacement, Dave Pybus, is just a bass player, albeit a pretty good one, with a flair for Gothic vaudevillian lines (the one that drives the short instrumental ʽDestiny Is Deadʼ almost sounds like a tribute to Alice Cooper's ʽWelcome To My Nightmareʼ). This leaves Danny Cavanagh as prin­cipal songwriter, and he takes the band into even less metallic territory that they covered on Al­ternative 4 — if the latter could still be called «heavy progressive rock» with some metal influen­ces, Judgement is more like «dark Goth-folk» with occasional moments of heaviness.

Unfortunately, in the process most of the sharp edges have been smoothed out, and the theatrical suspense that made Alternative 4, at the very least, curious, has all but disappeared. In its place is a hazy, light, stable atmosphere of soft postmortem depression, largely generated by medievalis­tic folk acoustic guitars, wrapped in thin cloaks of synthesizer textures — and hardly spoiled when­ever they decide to pump in a little adrenaline by turning into a more or less generic alt-rock band and churning out those faceless three-chord distorted riffs, because this is just a temporary trick for them now; all these chuggin'-heavy interludes are only there so that the album wouldn't all blur together in one huge cloud of dark-folk.

There's enough good taste retained for none of this to sound too irritating. Brother Vincent, now singing with clean vocals exclusively, prefers to be quiet and mournful rather than try to scale operatic heights. Synthesizers are used sparingly and almost never overshadow the «natural» flow of acoustic and electric guitars (and even when they do, it is only to offer a memorable musical theme — ʽMake It Rightʼ). The Pink Floyd influence continues to grow (ʽWings Of Godʼ), but is never strong enough to push the brothers off their own path. And yet, not even a single one of the tracks manages to come close to the intensity of ʽFragile Dreamsʼ.

One track that does stand out from the rest is ʽParisienne Moonlightʼ, continuing their tradition of inserting a bit of womanly sorrow and gentleness into their sagas of male grief — here, Danny Cavanagh sings a brief piano-backed duet with Lee Douglas that does have a bit of French flair to it, but mostly, you know, since all of their albums are about the living male grieving about the loss of his female companion, they need to hold at least one seance with the participation of the dearly departed female companion, and Lee Douglas makes a cool ghostly apparition for two minutes, really getting into the act. "You cried with me, you would die for me", she soothingly consoles our hero, but he'd not, really, he'd much rather sing for her until the end of the world.

Maybe the title track, which comes right after, should be considered another standout — it begins like almost everything else, another acoustic dirge, but eventually there's a crescendo of sorts, the song picks up a faster tempo and, two minutes into the song, we get a fast, agitated, rocking part with almost punkish energy. Problem, though: it is a mind-numbingly repetitive part, with the same rhythm pattern flogged on and on and on for more than two minutes. Not even a solo! Not even an unpredictable key change! Just on and on and on — and that, perhaps, is what bugs me the most about this music in general: it is far too unadventurous and far too «ambient-oriented» to involve my attention rather than involuntarily shut it off at about one minute into each and every one of these songs.

In the end, Judgement is what it is: a poor man's Pink Floyd as seen through the eyes of a formal doom metal band, just deprived of (possibly) its most inventive creative member. Totally liste­nable, but the music neither manages to properly daze and confuse me nor shatter my emotions, and I have no choice but to consider it a serious step down after the ear-bitter-candy elements of Alternative 4. But I do admit that, conceptually, it is quite loyally executed and certainly has a lot of appeal for those who take this style really seriously. The very fact that you can record an hour-long album channelling the spirits of all the Gothic pulp novel writers who ever lived and get away with it without too much embarrassment confirms that there just might be something there — it's just not a kind of something that's strong enough to stir anything within me.

Anathema: Alternative 4

ANATHEMA: ALTERNATIVE 4 (1998)

1) Shroud Of False; 2) Fragile Dreams; 3) Empty; 4) Lost Control; 5) Re-connect; 6) Inner Silence; 7) Alternative 4; 8) Regret; 9) Feel; 10) Destiny.

ʽShroud Of Falseʼ — a pretty good name not just for the short introduction to Anathema's fourth album, but maybe for the album as a whole, or even for the entire band, for that matter. As deep and solemn as this whole thing pretends to be, it is thoroughly impossible for me to take the record that seriously. That piano intro, for instance. It aspires to a sort of bluesified Chopin, but the way the melody slowly unfolds and gains in blunt power, you'd almost expect Bruce Spring­steen to be joining Roy Bittan any time now and crashing into ʽThunder Roadʼ. Then the vocals come in, and the illusion is gone, but these words? "We are just a moment in time, a blink of an eye, a dream for the blind, visions from a dying brain" — hello, ʽDust In The Windʼ. I can still try and imagine them with the grinning sneer of a Roger Waters, and it'd be okay; but irony, sarcasm, and humor of any sort, even the blackest one, is as strictly prohibited in Anathema records as catching Pokemons is in Russian churches. One laugh and you're fired.

This is why, even if, as far as I'm concerned, Alternative 4 is a pretty good record and probably the best Anathema that can be bought for your money (and if you want Anathema for free, pre­pare to be excommunicated, heh, heh), even so, I can never see myself or those who take their progressive rock seriously to be swamped by it. It is not even that the album remains chock full of «goth» clichés — it is that the band lacks the power to either subvert these clichés or, on the con­trary, drown in them so utterly and devotedly that their mere fanatical devotion would bring on involuntary respect. Their work is clean, elegant, and polite, and that's not the kind of approach that gives the best results when applied to a clichéd formula. To become real classy and comman­ding prog rock artists, they lack qualification; to become masters of the theatrical approach, they lack sincerity — and, to top it all, their melodies remain questionable at best.

Nevertheless, having said all that, I am amazed at how good Alternative 4 still turns out to be. The leap of quality from Eternity is astonishing — in terms of hooks, almost every song has something to offer, so that, if it does not succeed in subduing my soul, it at least baits my curio­sity. The very first song, ʽFragile Dreamsʼ, opening with a gentle guitar strum, is then joined by a slightly gypsy-esque violin line (from guest musician George Rucci), and finally settles on the album's best riff — simple, insistent, nagging, hard to forget, and, coolest of all, actually intro­duced by that violin. The first two minutes of the song, completely instrumental, are the best musical sequence on the record; once the vocals come in, we are in Cure-lite territory once again ("countless times I trusted you, I let you back in..." — don't tell me Robert Smith did not actually write these lyrics for them), but it's okay, it's not too problematic, and eventually the cool riff will be back, leading the song to its over-the-cliff suicide. Yes, they could probably do more with the instrumental part than just playing the riff over and over, but Anathema don't do mad soloing, it's disrespectful towards their target audience (the dead, that is).

ʽEmptyʼ starts out with half-spoken vocals backed with lonely, «black» synthesizer chords — you know it's just a premonition for something louder to come, and when the rhythm section and the main melody kicks in, lo and behold, you have another cool riff, and even the melodramatic singing is easier to stand, as it comes equipped with a very humane-sounding snarl (still no sense of irony, but when he goes "I abhor you, I condemn you...", I have to say, that's dangerously close to sounding like a very realistic curse). Unfortunately, ʽLost Controlʼ then reminds us of how terribly clichéd this band is, after all — somewhere deep inside the song hides itself a real cool groove with a surprisingly funky bassline and some neat acoustic picking, but on the whole it is way too derivative of the spirit of The Wall to ring true. Just one more of those «funeral marches for myself», albeit nicely arranged. The key moment is when the melody dies down to let the singer ask the principal question, "Have I really lost control?" If, at that moment, your heart feels wrought with pity and your eyes swell with tears... welcome to the club where I am not welcome. If not, congratulations for knowing the exquisite difference between Vincent Cavanagh and Peter Hammill. But even I have to admit that there is something to be said about the dynamic shifts on that tune, and that not a lot of goth-themed metal bands would be ready to work on such a fine balance between heavy distorted guitars, pianos, and acoustic guitars.

Actually, at this point Anathema cannot even be defined as a metal band — there's no more «metal» here than there is on a classic Rush album (or, to make a somewhat more accurate ana­logy in terms of cheese-to-substance correlation, Eloy). They're doing stone-faced goth theater, and if this needs a metal riff inserted at some point, so be it; but even on the most doom-laden tracks, such as the title one, the pitches are higher than on your average doom metal composition. It might have helped if there was less emphasis on the vocals altogether: speaking of the title track, the album's one truly cringeworthy moment is when the singer suddenly adopts a Tiny-Tim-meets-Shakesperian-artist intonation to deliver the "I'll dance with the angels to celebrate the Holocaust" verse (ooh, shocking!). On the other hand, no vocals at all would make the album more boring, because the «progressive» melodies lack sufficient complexity, and are more about creating an overall atmosphere than taking the listener through dazzling shifts of time signatures, tonalities, moods, and messages.

All in all, I give the record a thumbs up — not because it supports and consoles me in my hour of desperation, but because I am willing to recognize the creativity and talent, and adjust to the theatrical conventions of the record. I mean, maybe somewhere deep down inside there's a second bottom to it — they did name it after Alternative 3, after all, which was a classic UK conspiracy theory hoax — but even if you stick to this deadly seriousness all the way, Alternative 4 is much more fun than the average doom-and-gloom concoction from gazillions of pretentious mediocri­ties all over the world.

Anathema: Eternity

ANATHEMA: ETERNITY (1996)

1) Sentient; 2) Angelica; 3) The Beloved; 4) Eternity Part I; 5) Eternity Part II; 6) Hope; 7) Suicide Veil; 8) Radiance; 9) Far Away; 10) Eternity Part III; 11) Cries On The Wind; 12) Ascension.

«Inspired» (is this the right word here?) by the illness and death of the Cavanaghs' mother, Eter­nity is the first Anathema album that is quite hard to technically classify as heavy metal at all, even if I wouldn't go as far as to label it «progressive rock» instead. Rather, they preserve and amplify all the soft elements that may be typical of artistically inclined metal bands — the dark folk atmospheres, the acoustic guitars, the mournful vocals, the quiet gloom — while at the same time downplaying the deep-black distorted rumble of the metal guitars, in the place of which you will here frequently find a guitar sound much closer to grunge and alt-rock. So it's more like «de-metallized metal» than a 180-degree transition to some other genre — and, of course, the one thing that stays completely the same is the band's total commitment to the bleakness and depres­sion of their vision. The mark of Cain is not to be washed off that easy.

This is not necessarily bad — imagine, say, Black Sabbath releasing an entire LP of ʽPlanet Caravansʼ, ʽSolitudesʼ, and ʽLaguna Sunrisesʼ with just a couple of ʽWheels Of Confusionʼ in between — but on their first try, Anathema do not seem to be doing a very good job with it. In terms of pure atmosphere, Eternity is indeed a major step forward, and the lack of growling vocals makes it possible to put it on in the neghbors' presence without excessive blushing. But as far as memorable themes or unique personality is concerned, the album is fairly boring. The textures are easily comprehensible — some minor bass chords, some dark acoustic strum, some overdubs with wailing-weeping electric guitars and some distorted feedback for background canvas — but the songs, subsequently, are largely indistinguishable from each other.

The only exception is ʽHopeʼ, sounding more like a righteous prayer than a depressed lament and having the good sense to arm itself with some cool riffs, including a shrill siren-like four-note electric sequence that provides the song with a stronger, calcium-enriched skeleton. Ironically, this is the only song not written by the band — it's a Roy Harper cover, with Harper himself appearing as a guest star with some spoken narration in the intro, which pretty much tells us all we want to know. And speaking of the Harper / Pink Floyd connection (ʽHopeʼ itself was co-written by Harper with Gilmour), yes, Eternity is the first of many Anathema albums where Floyd influence becomes very clearly visible, but it is one thing to be influenced by your prede­cessors, and quite another thing to show that you yourself are worthy of being influenced by them. As it is, I have not found any particular musical touches on this record that would even begin to approach the melodic genius of Floyd.

They do have the best of intentions, but neither brother Vince's vocals (too dusky and mid-rangey to compete with a Robert Smith, too autumnal and sentimental to have the grip of a Roger Waters) nor brother Danny's guitars (too often relying on metal / alt-rock / ambient-prog clichés) are stun­ning on their own, and multiplying one so-so by another in this world violates the laws of math: instead of so-so squared, you get the square root of so-so squared. Except in specific cases like the truly awful ʽSuicide Veilʼ, where you put brother Vince totally upfront, so that for most of the time, he just bleeds out of your speakers on a pallet of hushed symph-synths and minimalistic bass — here we have the square root of so-so, period, and a desire to rush him off to the ER as fast as you can, before his veins run empty due to theatrical overcalculation. Elsewhere, he at least operates under a more respectable musical cover (over-emoting on your guitar, for some reason, is always less of a crime than over-emoting on your vocal pipes), but still, that does not make any of these songs easier to describe and identify as specific meaningful entities. The good news is, they would learn to do better in the future; the bad news is, in between their brief wobble on the stepping stone of Silent Enigma and their landing on the relatively safe coast of Alterna­tive 4, they had to make the plunge, and Eternity is it — thumbs down, unless you just happen to be an instant fan of every song that propagates some form of suicide.

P.S. Oh, and, by the way, the producer on this album was Tony Platt — incidentally, the very same guy who was responsible for producing Cheap Trick's The Doctor back in 1986. Coinci­dence? Not what I'd like to believe, no.

Anathema: The Silent Enigma

ANATHEMA: THE SILENT ENIGMA (1995)

1) Restless Oblivion; 2) Shroud Of Frost; 3) ...Alone; 4) Sunset Of The Age; 5) Nocturnal Emission; 6) Cerulean Twilight; 7) The Silent Enigma; 8) A Dying Wish; 9) Black Orchid.

And here we have it — a big step forward, as the band gets rid of its lead vocalist and opts for a less clichéd, more ambitious sound. Technically, The Silent Enigma may still be labeled as doom metal, but now it has a significant soft component as well; and guitarist Vincent Cavanagh, taking over the vocal duties, largely dumps the cartoonish guttural growling (possibly just be­cause he was not able to master the technique, but thank God for that anyway) and sings in a vari­ety of tones that range from stone-cold, half-spoken recitals to snarling screaming: still theatrical­ly exaggerated, but at least somewhat relatable, if you make a strong effort to believe that here before you stands a demonically possessed lyrical hero from the Middle Ages.

Not that I am advocating to take this album too seriously: like almost any doom metal, what we have here is an elaborately staged «black mass» performance whose formal aspects (guitar tones, melodic structure, production, overdubbed effects, etc.) are far more alluring than any direct emotional impact. But this particularity only has to be stated once and then discarded as some­thing self-evident — if an album like this truly «rocks your world» and makes you empathize with the protagonist, all I can say is take it easy, brother, we're not quite on the threshold of the Apocalypse yet, and life goes on even after your beautiful long-haired bride, to whom you were going to get married on a lovely, jasmine-scented Sunday morning, expired from bubonic plague while still wearing her wedding dress, and left you forever cursing God's name because that's what everybody does in a situation like this. "My paralysed heart is bleeding", "condemned to misery, restless oblivion forever", "lost deity betrayed my faith", you know the drill.

We'll just push all of that right out of the way and try and concentrate on the music (because, honestly, the album would have worked much better in fully instrumental form). This is where the Cavanaghs begin to develop and exploit some really enticing ideas — ʽRestless Oblivionʼ, for instance, begins with a minute-long soft exposition (a modest and lovely folk-pop guitar melody dominating the waves), then smoothly, but firmly slips into a crushing «ninth-wave-style» metal riff, and then, adopting a weird time signature, begins riding a curious double-tracked guitar sinu­soid that has a certain hypnotic quality to it. With all the interludes and all the alternations be­tween melodic and metallic bits, it's a fairly solid piece of music, with only the silly lyrics and the «possessed» vocals presenting them spoiling the picture (frankly, I'd say that the music on its own does not even properly convey the feeling of bleek despair that the words keep talking about — the melody is disturbing, tempestuous, but not dirge-like, and I'd rather have it left open for free interpretation rather than follow the words directly).

Since the intended mood is quite uniform for all the tracks here, they largely fall into two (and even then, somewhat overlapping) categories — «rowdier» numbers, based on more precisely fleshed-out guitar and bass riffs, and «moodier» numbers, relying more on the atmospherics of multiple sustained notes than on headbanging tricks. Thus, ʽShroud Of Frostʼ is basically just one prolonged guitar wail, with minimal melody and protracted notes that sometimes seem to go on until the amplifier runs out of battery support; unfortunately, since the basic chord sequence is not exactly an emotional rollercoaster, I find the whole thing rather tedious to sit through, and would rather prefer ʽA Dying Wishʼ, which moves along at a higher speed and features a solid chugging riff at its heart (a rather generic one, though, I'm afraid). On the other hand, ʽNocturnal Emissionʼ combines the two aspects well — there's a mournful and menacing bass riff at its core, which is good enough for them to leave it on constant repeat for the last minute of the song as it slowly fades away, but it's not a headbanging riff, more like a hand-of-doom riff.

But on the whole, instrumental and stylistic difference between the various songs is still kept to a minimum, and such little touches of extra color as female dark folk vocals on ʽ...Aloneʼ (the Dear Departed was relieved from post-mortem duty for a bit to make one last phone call to the prota­goinst), or a bass/synth-dominated wordless funeral march on the closing ʽBlack Orchidʼ, do little to change the fact that The Silent Enigma still has tremendous potential to bore you stiff unless you're really really really into the my-dying-bride thing. Consequently, I refrain from giving the record a thumbs up, despite all the good words about certain individual riffs and textures; let us simply agree to call this the band's «teenage» phase, legitimately succeeding its «childhood» phase on Serenades, and then see where it leads to in the future.

P.S. Beautiful album sleeve, though, don't you think?

Anathema: Serenades

ANATHEMA: SERENADES (1993)

1) Lovelorn Rhapsody; 2) Sweet Tears; 3) J'Ai Fait Une Promesse; 4) They (Will Always) Die; 5) Sleepless; 6) Sleep In Sanity; 7) Scars Of The Old Stream; 8) Under A Veil (Of Black Lace); 9) Where Shadows Dance; 10) Dreaming: The Romance.

Unless you always take your morning coffee with three new lumps of doom metal, there is not much to praise about the debut album of Anathema. The songs are slow, sluggish, monotonous, and topped off with the growling vocals of lead singer Darren White — who, much too often, sounds like the victim of a really bad throat virus rather than a professional demon from Hell (granted, such is the fate of about 80% of «growlers», but it is possible for a really good growler to send shivers down one's spine: all it takes is make yourself sound genuinely aggressive and pissed-off, which is not something this guy White is capable of).

Nevertheless, brothers Vincent and Danny Cavanagh, handling guitar duties, are already showing some signs of being more interested in a «sensitive», progressive sound rather than simply com­posing the soundtrack for a routine zombie apocalypse. The most heavily promoted track, ʽSweet Tearsʼ, apart from being driven by a curiously «curved» riff, is accompanied throughout with a melodic lead line that occasionally bursts apart in some psychedelic overdubbed fireworks, not to mention the quiet, bass-driven bridge with clean, prayer-like vocals giving you a break from the growl. None of that makes it a great song, because the growling kills one part of the excitement and the repetitiveness finishes off the other, but it does give a hint that these guys really know how to use their guitars, and that all it takes for them to embark on the road for greatness is to get rid of the most annoying clichés of the genre.

There is one song here among the thick pools of sludge that sounds completely different: ʽSleep­lessʼ, strange enough, begins like a genuine early Eighties New Wave track, with Cure-like guitars introducing a cold, melancholic mood (and even the tempo being slightly sped up to shake off any doom metal associations), before true metal guitars and growling enter the picture for stylistic correction (and even then they keep moving in and out to keep things interesting). (There is also a short accappella track, sung in French by a female guest vocalist, that introduces an ap­propriate «dark folk» overtone, but it is too short and interlude-like to be of any serious interest). Everything else, however, is fairly stereotypical and, after a while, just blurs together in a mess that is neither too threatening nor too emotionally resonant — certainly nowhere near as emotio­nally resonant as the lyrics, all of which deal with loss, tragedy, death, coffins, mourning, end­less dreams, etc., would seem to suggest. Not that you could make any of them out with those vocals.

The biggest surprise comes last: pinned to the end of the record is ʽDreaming: The Romanceʼ, a 23-minute long ambient soundscape that sounds like it grew out of the final chord of ʽA Day In The Lifeʼ — just a minimalistic keyboard melody super-slowly unveiling against an oscillating hum in the background. I have no idea why they wanted to go in that direction and play God, that is, Brian Eno after exhausting their current pool of metal riffs, but that's the way it is. Maybe some people do need 23 minutes of New Age sonic textures to relax after 42 minutes of jarring doom metal, except most of them probably do not know it.

All in all, a rather inauspicious start, but I guess they had to start somewhere: Peaceville Records had just picked them up on the strength of their doom metal demos, and they did have to pander to a stereo­typical audience for a while. I'm sure a fan of «classic» Anathema could learn to live with Serenades or even love it, but even in a genre as formula-dominated as doom metal there may be standouts, and this one definitely is not, so a thumbs down it is.