Anathema - A Natural Disaster

I've recently been playing catch up with Anathema. They are a band I have now known about for years, but I only own a very small amount of their albums. Thank Zombie Jesus then, for the Amazon marketplace with it's sometimes insanely cheap prices. A used copy of A Natural Disaster ended up costing me almost next to nothing. And to be honest, I'm really glad.

The first thing that surprised me about this record - often regarded I think as one of Anathema's best - is that it's an absolute disjointed mess. For the first few songs, I don't think anybody really has any idea about what is going on; the band just drift from one song to the other with what seems like no real drive at all. It's like it's acoustic and floaty for the sake of being acoustic and floaty, and it goes nowhere until the start of track 3, "Closer", just cuts in clumsily. Here at least, the album starts properly. "Closer" is a hell of bloody good tune, making (for once) good use of a vocoder or harmonizer, that builds and builds until it explodes in a post-rock-esque orgasm of sound. Good stuff!

"Are You There?" on the other hand is probably one of the worst things I have ever heard. "Childhood Dream" is almost as pointless, and then bam - another rocking track just cuts in rudely, the thankfully excellent "Pulled Under At 2000 Metres A Second", which isn't dissimilar in writing style to "Panic" from the previous Anathema record, A Fine Day To Exit. This album reminds me of Swans' Soundtracks For The Blind, in the way that dreamlike ambiances and floaty acoustic passages mesh awkwardly with heavy-hitting, full-band pieces. It just doesn't flow at all, in my opinion.

Thankfully though, things are a-okay from here on out; every track is a belter. "Flying" is an Anathema favourite of mine, with a chorus that has a through-the-roof sing-a-long factor. "Electricity" is a lesson in post-rock swelling and building done far better than by many of the restrictive genre's current participants.

All in all, there are some brilliant songs here, it's just this album suffers from a whole bunch of filler crap as well. Couple that with the "flow" issues and you really have one disappointing record, which is really inexcusable for a band with such passion, integrity, and musical dexterity as Anathema, especially on an album that is only 10 tracks long. I'm glad I bought this, as I can now move on with finishing my collection, but unless you really love this type of music, I'd look for my Anathema kicks elsewhere. That's exactly what I'll be doing, at least.

Anathema - Hindsight

Yes yes, I know you’re all probably thinking the same; “not another bleedin’ Anathema post!”, but tough shite! I’ve done a lot of listening to Anathema recently, and that’s how Lines In Wax works; I don’t randomly just pull reviews out of my arse, I generally try to write about what is fresh in my head to give a more accurate, in depth review. That’s why there isn’t any tangible order to the stuff I get through, and new and old releases are reviewed in no particular sequence. When I first started Lines In Wax I did posts alphabetically, that’s why most of the A & B section of the 7”s is almost complete, but you’ll also notice that when I started, I was purely posting images posts with no reviews, and posting multiple blogs per day. The reviews came afterward.

Annnnnnywaaaay, how I can ramble! Where were we? Yes, that’s it; Anathema’s Hindsight. This very fancy little CD package marked my first physical purchase of a brand new CD in an actual chain store (it was HMV) in an ungodly amount of time. I don’t like paying top-draw (read: over the odds) for CDs but this looked really shiny on the rack and with a tenner burning a hole in my pocket I couldn’t resist and caved.

Hindsight is beautiful, providing the listener with “MTV Unplugged” kinda versions of classic Anathema tracks. The opener, “Fragile Dreams” sounds absolutely epic on strings, and the acoustic version of “One Last Goodbye”, whilst a bit sappy, shows a whole new heart-wrenching side to an already cripplingly emotional song. “Are You There” sounds just as awful as the original, and songs like “Flying” and “A Natural Disaster” don’t really sound that dissimilar to their original recordings, which does get me thinking about the point of their inclusion, but I’m not really that bothered as these newer versions of both tracks sound absolutely fantastic.

All in all, if you’re an Anathema fan, you need Hindsight in your life, although to be fair you probably don’t need me to tell you that. 

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!