Anathema - The Crestfallen / Pentacost III

Every so often I just gotta come back to early Anathema. Most often, it used to be to Serenades, but as time has gone on, I find myself revisiting this compilation rather than the debut album. Despite the engine of pure brilliance that modern Anathema has become, I do genuinely miss the old doomy Anathema. Honestly, this comp always gets looked over by me, but lets be frank here: as awesome as Serenades is, the production on both of these sessions is much more rounded and level. There is a haunting hollowness to Serenades (comparisons can be made to early My Dying Bride and even the first Cradle Of Filth album), but Crestfallen in particular is a lot dryer and clean. The songwriting is on point, the delivery flawless, and the vocals savage as fuck.

Anathema - Judgement

For me, I find that Judgement is the perfect sound for Anathema. If you've read a few of these posts, by now you should notice that I like to find a balancing point between the sound a band starts with and then eventually works their way towards. I like to lay out albums in my mind and try and see how groups get from one stage to the other; what changes and why. Judgement, in my mind at least, is the middle ground in the Anathema journey from miserably slow and heavy doom metal to the post-rock influenced alternative rock outfit they are today. With Anathema's current range of sounds and influences, it is probably unfair to dismiss their current output as such, but there are only so many words you can use to describe a certain sound without coming across like a pretentious dick.

The cover to this record is deceiving; by looking at it one would expect something altogether more doomy, and whilst some of the songs do have a fairly heavy clout, you will find that most of the fuzz is toned back in lieu of softer textures and more subtle song structures. "Deep" sets things off with a fairly balanced approach to what I am talking about here: the drums are heavy and you keep expecting it to kick in but it doesn't, it stays a soft, clean guitar-led track. The songs continue in this vein for a while, including my favourite of this album, "One Last Goodbye", which is a terrifically sad and moving song about the death of a loved one. This at least, gets a bit of clout building behind it.

"Parisienne Moonlight" which follows it is one of my least favourite Anathema songs, but the scores of songs that follow afterward soon put this little hiccup to bed. My digipak version of this album finishes with the bonus track "Transacoustic", which whilst not really offering anything more to the album as a whole, is quite a nice piece of music. Like I said at the start, Judgement is the definitive Anathema sound, but probably won't ever rank too high on my personal scale. Still, it's well worth a listen, if just to check it out. Be sure to have some tissues at the ready!

Anathema - A Fine Day To Exit

This is one of my favourite Anathema albums - if not my favourite out of them all (that I have heard). It was also the first "soft" Anathema record I got hold of after discovering the band didn't play doom metal anymore. I spent a while worshipping the Serenades album, which was probably one of my first introductions to the ultra-slow and miserable side of doom metal. I was so excited to see the band play live at Download 2007, as they were one of the few decent acts on the line up. Having only heard Serenades, you could imagine the fucking shock I had when the band took to the stage (with Lee Douglas in tow, as I believe they were still touring A Natural Disaster at the time). 

It took me a while to adjust to these fancy English-folk with their flowery shirts and uplifting music, and A Fine Day To Exit helped me greatly to appreciate the softer side of music! For somebody who through 2007/2008 was pretty much 100% living and breathing shitty grindcore, A Fine Day... was one of my more experimental purchases, but it has through time cemented itself as one of my favourites. I don't really listen to it that much, but when I am in the mood for it, there really isn't anything else that can be accepted as a substitute. 

Opener "Pressure" is epic as fuck, which a huge piano leading a stomping drum beat and soft vocals. Second track, "Release", starts off all twinkly and acoustic but develops into something much more progressive and "rock-band" based. This song can really sum up what Anathema is all about! "Underworld" has one of the weirdest (and best) guitar riffs in the history of music and track seven, "Panic", is one of my favourite songs of all time, sounding like an upbeat and slightly heavier (and a whole world less boring) Radiohead. I won't go into every song here, but the four above are probably my favourites so I'll just leave it at that.

 

If you've never heard Anathema I implore you to check out the link below and chillax to the fuckin' max. If you're a regular on the metal or rock festival circuit, keep your eyes out for these charming gentlemen as they still seem to play a rather large amount of heavier festivals. I guess that's where their roots are, as are a lot of their fans despite their softer sound, and whilst they do seem out of place sandwiched between the likes of Candlemass and Turisas etc., I promise you it will be a refreshing and eye opening break. 

diSEMBOWELMENT - Transcendence Into The Peripheral

Imagine how stupid I felt after shelling out for the super-ultra-mega-wicked-limited edition of this record that was ONLY available at day one of Roadburn 2012 when I found out there was actually less to it than the normal Relapse package and a few quid more expensive! Bitch please! In a European world where records cost an average of 20 Euros each I was not impressed. Never mind, I guess it is the same record regardless, not to mention it is just that; super-ultra-mega-wicked. Oh boy.

diSEMBOWELMENT were another one of those bands that I would always hear mentioned and I would never get around to checking out. Shame on me. When Roadburn 2012 announcements came around and I finally was forced to download this to get familiar with them, boy was my face red. Nowadays my tolerance for death metal is as thin and worn out as Sasha Grey's taint, and for that reason I will kick myself eternal that I did not discover this record in the peak of my death metal / grindcore days, where I surely would have appreciated it more!

But it is no matter, it is still slower than a Land Rover Defender stuck in 2nd gear, and I can get down with that. "Death metal? Slow, you say? Have you had too many knocks on the head?" I hear you ask. Why yes I have, but that's besides the point. I think this is the first death-doom record I own; that's not to say that it is pure death-doom, you get the odd blast beat and a whole bunch of weird stuff to keep it interesting. If you like your records long, drawn out and quite honestly painful, I would highly recommend this band.

Check out track two on this fucker, it has the most epic intro ever.