Needless to say, I am always sceptical when it comes to listening to a new album from a band I like. Twice as much when that band is one that I appreciate so much and their songs have been a precious company to me, helping me out of some hard times.
Anathema is the band I am referring to and I was looking forward to their latest release following one such as Judgement and Alternative 4 which still tears my soul apart, one of the few albums I rarely dare to listen to because of that.
Listening to the first few seconds of this album brought one thing to my mind. Radiohead. When it reached the end of the final track (at least I thought so, *hidden track alert*), two more words popped up. Pink Floyd. Anathema are obviously influenced by these two great bands and I don't think that producer Nick Griffiths who has worked with Floyd before had nothing to do with it. The vocals, the guitars and the piano in the opening track Pressure write Radiohead all over it, thought Anathema have managed to keep their own identity.
I don't want this observation to make me sound the wrong way. These are Anathema in their finest. If you are a fan of the old school death grunting, you'll probably hate this album. If you have followed them all the way to this point, you will absolutely adore it. It can make you relax (The 18' long Temporary Peace must be the track the cover was inspired from.), it can shatter you (Leave No Trace is a good old mood destroyer - I love it), it can make you close your eyes and think... A true hurricane of emotions, everything you would expect from a pure Anathema album.
My fave songs from this album were Pressure, Release and Barriers, not that it means anything since the rest of the songs are great too. It's not an album that will grab you from the throat and force you to listen to it till the laser beam melts it, but it will grow slowly into you and occupy a small space in your heart, probably the most melancholic corner of it... A job well done.