Anathema - The silent enigma

These words alone, spoken by Vincent Cavanagh, singer and second guitarist, together with his brother Daniel and the band's jack-of-all-trades (drums, percussion, synths, electronics) John Douglas, the historic core still active in the group, would be enough to fully clear Anathema's name. "The Silent Enigma" isn't just the title of the band's first masterpiece, the peak of the first of three phases they would go through over the course of their career, but a perfect definition to sum up, in a nutshell, one of the most extraordinary mutations rock has ever seen. Because starting out by blending two metal directions (already fairly disconnected from each other) like doom and death, evolving along the lines of Floydian psychedelia and brit-rock, and ending up as one of the most substantial progressive acts of the new millennium is truly something incredible, in the literal sense as well as the emphatic one. Something that could be the subject of all kinds of studies. An enigma, then, but one that developed so gradually and naturally as to remain silent. But the hidden secret of Anathema lies precisely in the fact that they have always put heart above everything else: above the aesthetic devices in which their music could have comfortably taken refuge, above the (many) fans who would have liked them to keep stunning listeners with the violent distortions of their early days or who were ready to place them alongside the big names of late-Nineties brit-rock, above a critical establishment that has (as usual) crowned and abandoned them in alternating phases, above labels that had banked on them for business, and even above themselves and the many difficulties encountered along the way. The heart, or if you will the triumph of emotion, is the real key to the silent enigma, which here we will try to reconstruct by retracing the dynamics and anecdotes of its perpetual, tireless evolution.

I always thought being a musician would become my job, but in truth I never imagined I'd be doing it together with these other guys. It was the early days, when we started getting serious, writing serious songs and making our first demo; I think that's when I realized we were at a turning point. Or maybe the turning point was the tour with Paradise Lost. It was around then, in the very early '90s, that we started saying 'let's try this and do it properly!'

(Daniel Cavanagh)

I think my fondest memory of Anathema is our first European tour, in 1994. We played with At The Gates and Cradle Of Filth. It was a wild situation, a bus full of young delinquents with free drinks every night. We were all young and (for the most part) irresponsible

(Duncan Patterson)

Liverpool. 1990. Singer Darren White, drummer John Douglas and the three Cavanagh brothers, Daniel, Vincent and Jamie, on guitars and bass, form the band Pagan Angel, and in November of that same year record their first demo: An Iliad Of Woes. Before releasing it, in January of the following year, they decide to change their name to the programmatic Anathema. The demo draws early attention within the metal scene, and the band begins performing live, gaining visibility as support act on the tour of up-and-coming Paradise Lost. Another demo follows, All Faith Is Lost, along with a single, "They Die", which gets them noticed by Peaceville Records, who decide to produce their first EP — but not before talented Duncan Patterson replaces the already departing Jamie on bass, who was still reluctant to pursue an actual career as a professional musician.

Thus, in 1992, the band's first EP is born: The Crestfallen. The haunted look of the girl on the cover is a warning of what's already to come in "...and I Lust": abrasive, distorted guitars sink their claws in, dragging themselves across apocalyptic scenery, wrapped in the long shadows of trees greeting the twilight. "The Sweet Suffering", a title that says it all, draws the listener into the record's dark agony, grinding its bones down to the terrifying epilogue of "They Die", featured here as well. Only a handful of minutes of breathing room are granted by the stately chant leading into guest Ruth Wilson's acoustic passage.

The Crestfallen marks the band's emergence from its shell and a first statement of intent. A decidedly immature product, still rough around the edges and with a few naive excesses too many, but an early glimpse of a potential still waiting to be fully expressed.

A year later, in fact, once again through their now-trusted Peaceville, the five Englishmen release their first full-length, Serenades, which rightfully becomes their ticket in as leading figures of a new sub-genre then taking shape: doom-death metal. Inheriting doom's lumbering movements — first anticipated by Black Sabbath and Pentagram, then developed and modernized by Sweden's Candlemass — Anathema decide to marry them to the typical death-metal growl, embodied in Darren White's guttural roars. The verbosity of the compositions, the main weak point of the debut EP, is reduced, though not eliminated, with sharper, more focused tracks. It's here, precisely in the most successful songs, that we begin to glimpse what will become a distinctive trait of the band in the near future: the solemn orchestrations in the finale of "They (Always) Die", a spot-on remake of the title track from The Crestfallen; the reverbed arpeggios of "Sleepless", which, together with its traditional bassline, even pay homage to the dark new-wave sound of '80s new wave acts like The Cure; the sinister guitar interplay of the Cavanagh brothers, seasoned with unexpectedly groovy moments.

Serenades thus comes across as a first realization of the experiments carried out up to that point, with the band's personality beginning to emerge while still maintaining an overall stylistic consistency. The lyrics, too, stick to the blueprint already laid out, pursuing themes of suffering and despair, in a romantic lament over the unbearable loss of one's beloved other half: "I loved her... but now she's gone (It's so hard to face)".

There are, however, surprises in store, when the album's dark and oppressive atmosphere is suddenly cleared in the finale, dissipated across the 20-plus placid ambient minutes of "Dreaming: The Romance". The album's importance in the band's history is underscored by the visibility achieved by the excellent single, the colossal march "Sweet Tears", whose video even made it onto MTV.

Already in 1994, Anathema completed their next work, which, due to various issues with Peaceville Records, would only see the light of day in 1995. A somewhat forgotten record, probably also because of the limiting status of EP (however substantial at a hefty 40 minutes), Pentecost III is an interesting work mainly in that it charts the band's path toward full maturity. What immediately stands out is White's change in approach: he sets aside the rawness of earlier releases to embrace a more mournful vocal style, without losing the cavernous quality that defines him. Here the frontman takes more than a few steps back, blending his voice into the overall sound and leaving more room for the Cavanagh brothers than in the past, as in much of "Mine Is Yours To Drown In".

The choice pays off, rewarding the band's compositional evolution, with intricate tracks that once again run to substantial lengths, managing to hold the listener's attention with considerable effectiveness. It's the result of a first tentative, vague contact - which in the future would become a genuine dialogue - with progressive rock, a genre particularly loved by bassist Duncan Patterson. A clear example is "We, The Gods", torn between melancholic atmospheres brutally overturned by leaden sonic storms. In the finale, the band unceremoniously picks up what Iron Maiden - another band fundamental to the English group's growth - had sown, especially in the late '80s.

The scenarios painted on this album are still apocalyptic, but here they're broken up by constant shifts ranging from the epic to the pure death-metal violence of the closing section of "Memento Mori". But the best is yet to come, because with hindsight Pentecost III is nothing more than the antechamber to the work that would make the band immortal within the doom universe and beyond.

A vision of a dying embrace

We know our fans' thinking well, and we know there are many of them, especially the old guard, who'd like to see Darren White back on vocals. But the point is, we evolve however we feel like evolving. And, speaking of Darren, at the time he chose not to follow us. We're happy with how things are going for Anathema, regardless of the scene we operate in

(Vincent Cavanagh)

Newcastle, Lynx Studios, 1995. At the crucial stage of work on their second full-length, artistic differences lead to Darren White's departure. Losing, right at that stage - with the mixing desk already in use - the voice, lyrics and a dominant part of the creative source behind his compositions could have been the worst possible misfortune for the Liverpool band. And yet, it's precisely this split that will make the group's fortune: caught off guard, they find within themselves the key to resolving - and even turning around - their career. The compositional void is filled by the pairing of Daniel Cavanagh and Duncan Patterson, whose talent had until then been kept in White's shadow, while the four decide to promote Vincent Cavanagh to lead vocalist.

Out of this upheaval, in October of the same year, comes The Silent Enigma, which immediately establishes itself as a milestone in the metal world. Anathema make the definitive leap toward a mature, self-aware sound, the fruit of an effort born from the union of all its elements. Patterson benefits particularly from the new situation, beginning to contribute to the songwriting. The result is a further step toward progressive rock, even if the band still keeps it at arm's length from the death-metal vein still deeply rooted in its members. True gems like "Restless Oblivion", "Sunset Of Age" and "A Dying Wish" wind through multiple shifts, from gloomy wades through the mire to sonic scourges full of fury and torment, unleashed by Patterson's finally clear and pulsing bass and punctuated by John Douglas's dry, commanding thunder on drums.

The magnificence of the compositions is the result of a successful attempt to take the best from new influences without losing coherence with their own past. What the band achieves is therefore not a fragmentary collection of scattered ideas: The Silent Enigma is a mosaic of pieces forming a wall of granite, against which hopes and illusions shatter and fall to the ground, torn and agonized. Such a dizzying growth in their songwriting, now mature and concrete and never lost in wordy pretension, would be pointless without an equally effective and elevated lyrical message. Despite the gothic sonorities typical of the doom world, the mythological references found in their early writing give way to clearly romantic themes: the obsessive search for peace; the flight from an unacceptable reality; the loss of love, the resulting suffering and death as the only antidote, right up to the leering deception that waits, sadistic, in the afterlife.

Throughout all this, Vincent Cavanagh, despite his status as a "stand-in" vocalist, delivers performances of disarming effectiveness. Adopting a style that flexibly shifts between growl, screaming and clean tones, all consistently shrouded in gloom, he thrashes about in the horror described by the lyrics with a theatricality unknown to his predecessor: guttural, strangled in "Shroud of Frost" ("aiutami a fuggire da questa esistenza (…) sto affogando in un mare di visioni abusate e sogni infranti"); vile monstrosity in the lycanthropic "Nocturnal Emission" ("prenderti ora, nel mio sonno voglio toccarti, per lacerarti nel profondo"); a solemn prophet of doom in "Cerulean Twilight" ("un'anima morirà…"); a moaning martyr, his voice breaking with tears in "A Dying Wish" ("in the solitude of a broken promise, I cried alone…"). Not forgetting the album's now well-established melodic-acoustic moment, this time a mournful trickle of plucked strings welcoming the reproach of a lost soul, delivered by Rebecca Wilson's angelic voice: "Ti ho dato la mia anima, mi hai lasciato morire all'interno delle mura della mia mente … da sola". And here one can appreciate the carefully weighed orchestrations directed by Daniel Cavanagh, crucial overall in lending an imposing aura to the whole work, elevating it to a colossal ritual - sacred and barbaric at once - foreshadowing a grim and baleful fate, all while avoiding the kind of pomposity typical of other acts active in the same scene. This whole miracle of balance delivers a refined work of lucid yet shrieking iciness.

Destiny, infinity, eternity

We chose 'Hope' specifically to make a video for 'Eternity' - which is unusual, since it's a cover - because of the concept it carries with it: maybe we aren't spirits destined to vanish, maybe there's some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe things will get better one day, maybe we'll be dead; basically, all the things people tend to think about

(Vincent Cavanagh)

Several people keep telling me things like 'I wish you were still in the band, so they'd go back to being heavy and stop trying to sound like Pink Floyd'.

It's funny trying to explain to them that it's all my fault! I was the one who wanted that Floyd-like sound,

I was the one who introduced the rest of the band to Pink Floyd, and I haven't written a metal track since 'A Dying Wish'; and even this latest one is pretty Floydian!

(Duncan Patterson)

After the triumph they had just achieved, for the first time since White's departure the four Englishmen found themselves facing a blank page to start from. The result can be heard right away on Eternity, released in 1996, which marks a historic step in which the band completely abandons the death metal sound of their past, embracing new psychedelic and ambient ideas heavily influenced by the beloved Pink Floyd. Anathema thus progressively cut ties with the aggression of their past, and the first to bear witness to this is the frontman himself. Vincent decides to explore other paths, dropping the growl and adopting a clean style, discovering the remarkable possibilities of his deep, baritone timbre. The transition nonetheless proves methodical and careful, consistently preserving the doom pathos of the previous era. The brothers' booming guitars remain monolithic but are smoothed out, stretched wide.

The combination of elements proves thrilling throughout the first half of the record: from the placid sonic waves of the opener "Sentient", spread out like sea foam on a deserted beach, to what would become the band's future highlight, "Angelica", whose name foreshadows the celestial scenery in which stately progressions soar, free of any frills or forced moves. Patterson gains even more space in the songwriting thanks to his second instrument: his touch is evident in the understated piano accompaniments that lend the record a classical flavour, combined with the emphatic synth arrangements, once again handled by Daniel. Thus the first two parts of the title track conjure up the dreamlike, "cosmic" atmospheres depicted on the album cover.

The lyrics still dwell on romantic themes, though they lose the horror-tinged, animalistic and violent edge found on The Silent Enigma, replaced instead by a kind of powerless resignation to fate. "The Beloved" expresses concepts that will become central to Anathema's future work. On the subject, Vincent will say: "The feeling of reaching the end of your life, with every kind of regret for how you lived it while you had the chance, without letting anyone in with the love they carried". "Cries On The Wind" also conveys a sense of helplessness before an inevitable, harsh fate: "I don't dwell on the future, because I know it won't come. You know, once I'm gone, you'll hear my cries in the wind". Furthermore, as the album title suggests, eternity and infinity play a central role throughout the record: from Patterson's reflections transcribed in the track "Eternity", to the evocative "Destiny… infinity… eternity…" delivered by the album's customary ethereal female voice, Michelle Richfield, right through to the unexpected, and far from random, cover of "Hope", a Roy Harper song recorded in collaboration with, of all people, a certain David Gilmour.

Despite the very interesting new developments, and the album's undeniable importance in the band's evolution, Eternity nevertheless falls short of the perfection achieved by its predecessor. What stands out most is the failure to achieve a cohesive, compact work across all its phases and ideas, which betrays the record's nature as a transitional effort.

A weaker sense of measure emerges in the second half of the record, undermined by one too many bouts of bombast and a loss of cohesion, split between the theatrical obstinacy of "Suicide Veil" (where Vincent Cavanagh follows to the letter the teachings of another Floydian giant, Roger Waters), moods that struggle to be as effective the second time around in the third part of the title track, and outbursts with a Maiden-esque flavour – decidedly jarring in this context – in the closing pair of "Cries in The Wind" and "Ascension". Taken individually, these are compositions that are largely enjoyable, but they struggle to fit into the dimension built up by the excellent opening part of "Eternity". Still, the nervy lament of "Far Away" remains memorable, a progressive composition through and through and a forerunner of the "emotional" rock the band would soon settle permanently into. The overall impression, though, is that they piled a bit too much onto the plate, diluting a work whose potential is otherwise beyond question. But at this point, curiosity about the collective's future direction is certainly undeniable.

Celebrating the holocaust

You have to be a ruthless critic of what you do, to understand exactly what's good and what isn't. Well, with 'Alternative 4' we more or less reached that stage. We were disappointed with some things on 'Eternity' because we'd bitten off more than we could chew, and we were aware of it.

On the next record we stripped things right down to the bone and focused on the essentials.

I honestly think it's the first true Anathema album. The first truly honest record

(Vincent Cavanagh)

Yes, 'Alternative 4' is a great record. There are so many great moments on it. Vincent and I wrote four songs and Duncan wrote the rest, so I guess you could say it's effectively his record. Duncan is a genius and brought so much to what we did. After he left, nothing would ever be the same for us, he'll always remain a dominant force in our history. But in fact, he opened a kind of door for us. John Douglas came back and all of us got into this cycle of jamming and writing songs. Today we're very different without him, but I still appreciate him enormously, both as a friend and as a musician

(Daniel Cavanagh)

Anathema's new creation was slow to arrive. Some unfortunate dynamics crept into the band: John Douglas first began struggling with drug problems that made his contributions unreliable. Following his inevitable withdrawal, and in the hope that he would recover, the band decided to turn to drummer Shaun Steels (future member of My Dying Bride). Meanwhile, relations between Duncan Patterson and the rest of the band began to crack, weakened by his artistic purism, which created ever more distance from the group's other creative source, Daniel Cavanagh.

It's against this backdrop that Alternative 4 was born in 1998. Patterson confirms his decisive role, taking charge of a good part of the record, fully six tracks out of ten. The consequences are plain to hear, in line with the bassist's declared passion for progressive and classical composition. The past is pushed ever further away, shedding even the last doom residues found on Eternity, heading toward an alternative rock that, besides the aforementioned Pink Floyd, also winks at Radiohead, the true dominators of the scene at the time. The extreme care taken in production is also striking, moving from the predecessor's glossy over-production (which nonetheless had the side effect of lending it an aura of spatio-temporal suspension never replicated again) to a crisp, stripped-back sound, in a well-judged mix of highly incisive acoustic moments and disorienting, hypnotic passages, as in the unsettling title track. The distortions of the past are shaken off to make room for a brand-new minimalism. Vincent Cavanagh will rightly call it a particularly direct record, less built-up and layered than its predecessors, describing it as the bearer of a more honest and transparent kind of music, even calling it, for him, the band's first true album.

Considerations aside, Alternative 4 once again brings the band to a high level, showing a greater awareness than the experiments carried out on the previous record. Despite the record's bipolar nature, a result of the ongoing split between Patterson and Daniel Cavanagh, it presents a message that remains coherent throughout its course. The record's double-sided nature can nonetheless be seen in the contrast between Patterson's tracks, rich in pianistic flourishes and psychedelic outbursts, and the Cavanaghs', airy and tilted toward a melodic, guitar-driven approach. Ironically, in Anathema's near future, once Patterson has long since left the band precisely because of those artistic differences, they will take a path very much in line with what he wanted, including the permanent presence of a female voice, absent for the first time on Alternative 4.

A touch of pretentiousness still lingers in the record's closing stretch, during the long passages running from "Regret" to "Feel", which risk becoming overly long-winded. Even so, the sheer number of the band's classics here pushes the album straight among the fans' favourites, thanks in particular to "Fragile Dreams": gorgeous from its cello intro to the wall of sound that ushers in the driving, disarmingly catchy and propulsive riff. The song would go on to become a centrepiece of most of the band's future live sets, containing within it all the elements that would define the decades to come for the band and lead it to its lasting success.

Finally, another shift lies in the lyrics. The theme is inspired by Leslie Watkins' book “Alternative 3”, in which, amid mysterious space journeys – echoed by the “moon angel” on the cover – and an Earth that grows ever more arid and uninhabitable, humanity's salvation wavers between alternatives such as fleeing to a new planet or the calculated extermination of most of the population. The theme fires up Patterson and co. and is poured into the lyrics, steeped in a melancholy that fits perfectly with the album's mood. "Empty", propelled by a taut, driving groove, unleashes a frantic invective: ⟦Q1⟧. The peaceful surrender of "Lost Control" is moving: ⟦Q2⟧. "Inner Silence", another gem beloved by fans, expresses an impending loss too great to come to terms with: ⟦Q3⟧. The psychedelia inherited from Eternity then finds release in the title track, an unsettling martial march (with a faint, oddly doom-tinged aftertaste) aimed at genocide as the ultimate solution: ⟦Q4⟧.

Unfortunately, the new album's critical success could do little to lift the spirits of the English band. The grim omens of "Inner Silence" reveal their close bearing on reality, and not long after the release of Alternative 4 the brothers lose their mother Helen at just 49 years old, after a long illness. Shortly afterwards the band parts ways with Duncan Patterson, replacing him with Dave Pybus (an old acquaintance of the group, as well as a contributor to the artwork of their first albums), with whom the relationship unfortunately would never take off. Meanwhile, some consolation comes the Cavanaghs' way, as they welcome back into the ranks their bandmate John Douglas, who has emerged from the tunnel of drug addiction. Still, the terrible family loss strengthens the bond between Vincent and Daniel and heavily influences their next work, which more than any other will bring them close to the peak reached with The Silent Enigma.

The great judgement

Making 'Judgement' wasn't actually difficult, despite the loss we suffered. Duncan had the kindness and tact to leave the band right when we lost our mother, which allowed me and Vincent to rebuild our lives together. It wasn't working anymore. Duncan isn't much of a team player, but he's a great friend and musician. He understood it was the right moment to step aside. Vinny and I were already ready to start again. We had several riffs ready, we immediately called John Douglas and asked him to come back, to rebuild our identity.

Today we've improved a lot: Vincent's role in production has grown,

we work better together now, he's more aware. John has also matured as a writer, and he'll keep doing so

(Daniel Cavanagh)

In 1999, at the Italian "Damage Inc. Studios" located in Ventimiglia, Judgement is recorded. Despite Patterson's significant departure, the band's inspiration, combined with the restored and always important contributions of Douglas, remains at its peak. This is how, having left behind the death and doom elements of their most recent work, Anathema make the definitive leap toward an alternative rock increasingly tilted toward its melodic side. Yet this evolution toward a more accessible sound doesn't this time go hand in hand with a further softening of the atmospheres, which instead return to dark, gothic textures, with thick, gloomy clouds once again gathering over the new songs. The colors, however, are not black and funereal as in the earlier era. Instead, they recall the bluish and purple hues rendered so effectively on the album cover: a kind of nebula, a pulsating twilight of energy that embraces the listener with an oxymoronic, icy warmth.

After just four years, the shouted, fractured despair of The Silent Enigma is absorbed and processed into a calm, lucid contemplation of pain. The personality of Daniel Cavanagh, now finding himself alone in the role of primary composer, finally bursts forth, and his guitar, backed by his brother, becomes the absolute protagonist with sharp solos, as lacerating as blades slashing through the apparent calm on "Pitiless" and "Forgotten Hopes", or with moving melodic streaks on "One Last Goodbye". The instruments once again explore the lower reaches of their range, while studding the songs with constant touches of finesse in the upper register: now a harmonic, now a hinted arpeggio. Distortion is still widely used but, tamed and reined in, it now serves to saturate the most intense moods, stepping down from the pedestal to hum in the background, supporting the many acoustic sections or clean electric arpeggios.

The result is exquisitely cold and austere, thanks to the skillful use of reverb and delay stretched to the point of spasm. Judgement feels like the summation of everything the band had experienced up to that point: the melodic exploration of Alternative 4 combined with the sacred, rarefied atmospheres of Eternity, arriving at the icy, estranging moments of "Cerulean Twilight" and "Nocturnal Emission", from the masterpiece The Silent Enigma.

The result is a crystal-clear catalogue of moods, where loneliness and suffering scatter across endless landscapes, echoing in a boundless resonating chamber with a paradoxically composed roar. Judgement is a journey through the nebulae of the human condition, expressing a suffering that transcends all petty earthly misery.

The zenith of this martyrdom is one of the album's highlights: the poignant ballad "One Last Goodbye", dedicated to the Cavanagh brothers' mother, is remarkable in being heartrending while avoiding any cloying sentimentality, thanks in part to the great expressive strides made by Vincent's voice. The lyrics are piercing: ⟦Q5⟧.

In the following "Parisienne Moonlight" there seems to be an answer to this plea, with the fitting choice of a piano ballad in which Lee Douglas – sister of drummer John – adopts a loving yet distant vocal delivery, as a soul departing, with no appeal, toward oblivion might: ⟦Q6⟧.

In the title track, which places a tombstone seal on the last exchanges between the living and the dying, regret and a sense of the ephemeral pervade the two brothers' reflections. The great judgement referenced in the album's title reaches its final act: the torment of realizing that life is merely an infinitesimal speck in the eternity of time, too brief to be lived consciously without regret: ⟦Q7⟧.

Out of the tunnel

Evolution is probably the right word for our work. Danny, John and I are evolving in the way we make music. You know, you move, you evolve. It's like opening a door onto yourself. You open it, you try, you see if you like it, if it works, and at that point you don't want to go back because maybe you've found a new door to open ahead of you. And so you keep moving forward. Evolution and change are necessary in music.

I think evolution is the true essence of real progressive music

(Vincent Cavanagh)

Anyone who discovered Anathema's music in the new millennium often came to know them starting from the third of the skins they shed over the course of their career. A mutation that unfolded so gradually as to be almost imperceptible, only recognisable in hindsight. A process whose first major step came with the shift between Eternity and Alternative 4 — "At that point we turned into a real rock band, with a leaner, more direct style," Vincent Cavanagh would state many years later — before reaching its true turning point with the arrival of the 2000s. It's here, in fact, that the upward arc launched with the fourth album gains decisive momentum, of such intensity that its direction becomes impossible to pin down. A thrust that would prove so uncontrollable that it would burn through the band's entire reserve of creative energy within five years, pushing the machine to overheating and making a pause inevitable — one that would prove decisive.

What you find in the post-Judgement period, then, is a band still engaged in a desperate search for certainties — the same search that, two years earlier, by Vincent Cavanagh's own admission, had led to the recall of John Douglas: "At first Danny and I tried to manage on our own, but then we had to call John back because he had always been part of what we'd done. We had nothing against our other drummer, Shaun — in fact I felt terribly guilty — but we needed John, he was the only one able to act as glue between me and Danny." If Judgement had been a genuine triumph, a first cornerstone to build on, then the need for a stability to rely on going forward is the goal that A Fine Day To Exit is tasked with achieving. The key moves marking the first steps in that direction are the return to native Liverpool, after two albums recorded away from home, and the hiring of a full-time keyboardist. The choice falls on Les Smith, a familiar face from the Eternity sessions, previously with Ship Of Fools and, notably, Cradle Of Filth, whom Dave Pybus would later join as well. On paper the project looks extremely promising, but its stability is undermined by the balance the Cavanagh brothers have yet to regain: surprisingly, it's Douglas who takes charge of a potentially tricky situation, and for him the band's sixth album becomes a genuine vindication.

A Fine Day To Exit came out in October 2001, not long after the anthology Resonance (a summary of the period up to Eternity), following almost a year of sessions: a few key facts are enough to place it in context. The first is the presence in the producer's chair of the recently deceased Nick Griffiths, sound engineer for Pink Floyd and producer of two Roger Waters solo albums ("Radio KAOS" and the more interesting "Amused To Death"); the second is the title itself, a first attempt to break free from the tunnel of negativity that had shaped the mood of the previous records.

But there are still plenty of clouds clinging to the sky, as the single "Pressure" already makes clear — an evolution that leans further into the British atmospheres of Radiohead, whom Danny Cavanagh still cites today as one of the chief influences of that period, while at the same time showing an early, unmistakable interest in the neo-progressive "stupid dream" of Porcupine Tree. A connection that, just a few months earlier, had been sealed by Opeth's "Blackwater Park", a cornerstone of metal's spillover into the prog revival (and one of the first real alternatives to the reverse process driven by Dream Theater and their followers), whose prime architect is none other than Steven Wilson. And these are precisely the two coordinates between which the album tends to swing, marking both a partial departure from the sound of the previous "pair" of records and a distant glimpse of what's to come in the near future.

Alongside a "Looking Outside Inside" that keeps letting the tears fall before turning them into guitar-driven rage (the structural and sonic nod to Paranoid Android is unmistakable), there's a "Barriers" in which the scale of the suffering decisively shrinks, right up to the assorted distortions that close it out. "Release" is another number built for liberation, hinting at the first signs of that choral quality that would become a fixed trait of Anathema's future sound, alongside "Leave No Trace" and its crescendo. Considerably less convincing are the scratchy bursts of pure alt-rock concealing post-grunge ambitions, held back somewhat in "Underworld" and fully unleashed in "Panic". Sealing the record are two forays into stranger territory: the understated title track, which carries the melancholy into fully cosmic terrain, and the attempt at inner peace of "Temporary Peace", a still-raw attempt to introduce a theme that would become central in later works, enhanced by the evocative acoustic ghost track "In The Dog's House".

A Fine Day To Exit is the quintessential transitional album, gathering up the conclusions of some threads while roughly sketching out the beginnings of others. The strong form of Douglas's songwriting collides with the Cavanaghs' hobbled contribution: even so, the album maintains a consistently high average level regardless of the troubled gestation behind it, managing to represent the certainty the band was seeking and offering a good number of ideas ready to be developed over the following couple of years.

Further bolstering the situation is an unexpected, if modest, degree of commercial success — one that bypasses the band's native Britain but surprisingly crosses other borders: the album charts in Finland, Germany, France and, above all, Poland, where reaching number twenty-two marks the birth of a fanbase that would spread across all of Eastern Europe within a few years. All of this took place amid a process of turnover among the band's following, which had cost them part of their early metal audience while drawing another portion toward their new sound. "Some people have followed us since our very first days, just as others decided to leave us as early as our second album (The Silent Enigma, ed.), the one where I debuted as a singer," Vincent admits, well aware of the fact. But for Anathema, the need to evolve has always come before the desire to please their audience: "You see, if you let the audience's expectations seep into your musical creativity, you never evolve. It's right to respect people's expectations and the audience's wishes, sure, but it also depends a lot on what kind of band you're in." By the end of the year there's also room for Resonance 2, the sequel to the first compilation, which completes a broad overview of the band's early career, this time covering the Judgement and Alternative 4 era.

The explosion

In my opinion the album is much more linear and streamlined than 'A Fine Day To Exit', getting straight to the heart of the matter without too many frills. Of course it shares plenty of common ground with the previous album, but it features many different peaks within it, so there are some decidedly relaxed moments,

alternating with moments that are far more forceful and aggressive

(Daniel Cavanagh)

After a year of upheavals, this time handled with a surer hand — with Danny Cavanagh announcing he was leaving the band to join Duncan Patterson's Antimatter, only to change his mind within a couple of months — Anathema returned home in 2003 with a good chunk of the material for their next album already in hand. Dave Pybus was gone, having "relocated" to Cradle Of Filth's ranks with few regrets from the rest of the band: "In truth he was never really an integral part of the band," the guitarist would later admit, "and basically we didn't get on with his very ambiguous, deeply self-centred personality." In his place, the band recalled the quiet and mysterious third brother, Jamie, who had quit after the first demos and vanished completely from the scene: "Jamie was never drawn to that kind of lifestyle — recording albums, doing promo tours, getting up on a stage, travelling in tour buses, giving interviews and so on. I don't know how long it will last; Jamie had no impact whatsoever on A Natural Disaster," would be Danny's unsparing — and, with hindsight, partly prophetic — verdict, probably disappointed by the scant interest shown by the brother he himself had pushed so hard to bring back into the lineup.

But against this minor defection stands the certainty provided by the group's core, which had finally achieved the cohesion it had long sought, and by Danny himself, fully recovered and ready to firmly take hold of the band's compositional helm: "This is a particular album because I wrote the music and lyrics entirely on my own, and this time my 'hand' and my direction were more decisive compared to the other members. I hope the next album will see the whole band equally involved again, both in the writing and, once more, in the production." And he was confident enough in his own abilities to take a series of considerable risks, injecting — albeit in small doses — a number of new elements into the band's formula. "I love Portishead. I also appreciate the Bristol scene, but personally I was far more influenced by Portishead, especially when writing A Natural Disaster. They're one of the very few bands on this earth capable of giving their songs an extraordinary depth in the simplest possible way": statements seemingly at odds with the mix of brit-rock, melancholy, psychedelia and early hints of prog that had defined A Fine Day To Exit.

And indeed, the explosive, multicoloured blend of A Natural Disaster draws on a noticeably wider range of reference points than before, and reconciling them is the album's real, great strength. The attitude on display is, in every respect, that of a progressive band, ranging freely across multiple fronts while showing off a brand-new confidence, light years away from the fears and struggles of the past, yet steering clear of gimmickry and technical showmanship, instead focused on making the formula as direct and clean as possible.

Recorded in just over a month — another key difference from its predecessor — the new album came out toward the end of 2003, produced for the first time by the band itself, in the person of Danny, alongside Dan Turner and once again under the watchful eye of Nick Griffiths. The guitarist's brief stint within Patterson's kaleidoscopic new creature — ready to range from stark, downbeat downtempo to the rawest gothic-metal — is the cherry on top completing this many-sided transformation.

So the incipit of "Harmonium" is literally a shock, a melancholic litany driven by cloudy strings and a stark drumming that stages thunder and lightning before the storm that hits halfway through the track. "Electricity" settles into a similar mood, a place of transition from sadness to a melancholy streaked with clear skies, where for the first time it's the piano leading the dance. The pairing of "Are You Here" and "Childhood Dream" is of the rarest beauty: the first is a wounded-hearted ballad that classily avoids the risk of tipping into schmaltz, the second an evolution of the acoustic interlude tried out at the end of the previous album, this time far more sharply focused. A quiet antechamber before the tornado of "Pulled Under At 2000 Meters A Second", a cruel charge that, after years, resurrects the metal glories of Eternity. The latter are also echoed in the drumming of that masterpiece "Violence", a long suite of prog ups and downs that closes the album and, on gusts of melodic force progressively sweeping away the clouds, throws open the doors to the symphonic choral sound of the band's later masterpieces. A point of contact that, unfortunately, would never resurface live, unlike the handful of future classics that round out the tracklist: the purely brit nocturne of "Balance", the title track's immersion in pure trip-hop territory - complete with vocals entirely entrusted to Lee Douglas -, the majestic release of "Flying" (another omen of the band's future sound) and the delightful vocoder mantra of "Closer".

A Natural Disaster is a point of arrival, the conclusion of one path and the first brick of a new one still being worked out, a bold attempt to shed its sonic skin while still remaining anchored to the past in mood and atmosphere - the first step of a transition that had begun with less certainty on A Fine Day To Exit. But while the latter remained "straddling old and new", here, at least in terms of approach, the band decisively tips into the latter, thanks in particular to Danny Cavanagh's courage in mixing a multitude of elements under the common banner of progressive rock.

Having rediscovered certainty and stability, the "new Anathema" are still searching for one last element: an equally stable and distinctive sonic formula, which will take a full seven years to work out. After A Natural Disaster - unanimously praised by critics but, by its very sonic nature, unable to match its predecessor's sales figures - the band embarks on a tour that takes them across Europe, later documented by not one but two DVDs, Where You There? and A Moment In Time. But the album's success also ushers in a decidedly complex moment to manage: the choice of which road to take. The many possibilities opened up by so much experimentation now need a focus, a magnifying glass to delve into their details and expressive potential, so as not to risk falling back on the choice of not choosing, and the evolutionary standstill that would follow. On top of this come a series of thorny, complicated situations, first and foremost Bmg's acquisition of Music For Nations, and the band's choice to instead pursue independence from major labels. These elements lead to the decision - never actually made public - to take a long break, which Vincent Cavanagh would later explain this way: "We stopped for quite a number of reasons. First of all, at the start we were working with another management agency and another label. At the crossroads we asked ourselves whether to carry on that way or start self-producing the new record and then pitch it to labels once it was already finished. We opted for self-production, also because we weren't too keen on the first offers we got, especially in terms of the resources on the table. That also meant reaching a certain level of specific expertise in recording the album, with all its technical timeframes. Then there were a few small changes to the band's line-up. Seven years is a long time, but we're really happy to have reached the end of that tunnel".

During the seven years that separate A Natural Disaster from its belated and extraordinary successor, the band manages to pull off what is perhaps the most important feat of its career: staying together through hard times. Far from the prospect of a hiatus, Anathema seize the necessity of a break from recording to launch themselves on the biggest and best-attended tour of their career, sharing some dates with the far more popular Finnish band Him and indulging in a few personal pleasures along the way. Daniel Cavanagh, by now firmly established as the band's main songwriter, keeps producing material and testing it out, taking advantage of their new position within the industry: free from having to answer to any label, they start releasing some unreleased tracks through their website, following in the footsteps of Radiohead's pay-what-you-want method. Shortly before, the guitarist also puts out an entirely acoustic solo album, A Place To Be, which, while not especially striking in itself, fully testifies to the band's soaring interest in melodic exploration. "At that point Danny and I decided to finally take charge of the situation ourselves, but Les (Smith, ed.) gave us a huge hand. He set about building a studio that would let us do everything without a label, it was a really strange, particular period. And meanwhile, as we kept working, the shows in Europe kept getting fuller and fuller, we had more and more followers. It was clear something special was happening", Vincent Cavanagh would later sum up. During the same period, John Douglas's sister Lee also joins the five permanently: the move, an apparently belated evolution of an artistic collaboration that had by now become a fixture, is in fact a further hint at the road the band is about to take, one for which Vincent's voice alone would no longer be enough.

Purification

We're the kind of people who like to change. And we're an English rock band with a deep interest in melody and the emotion that lies within music. Whatever genre label gets slapped on us, it's ultimately the same material that has evolved and will keep evolving. We've always moved on with complete naturalness, and I think if anyone had anything against our wanting to change, we'd simply not care what they think

(Vincent Cavanagh)

When, out of nowhere, Anathema announce in 2010 that their eighth studio album is coming soon, it seems clear from the start that something truly important is about to happen. A brief, cursory look at what happened during the eight years away from recording leads to a single conclusion: to the stability already built up, the "third" Anathema are ready to add a newfound sense of peace. Having weathered yet another difficult period with such ease and cohesion that it barely even seemed like one, the band gains a shot of confidence that translates decisively into the most unpredictable and extraordinary of their three transformations. The road the group was heading down had already been signposted unmistakably two years earlier by Hindsight, a collection of orchestral reworkings of a choice selection of material from the period between Alternative 4 and A Natural Disaster. Progressive rock is the chosen path, and if "Violence" had already been an important demonstration of that, the decision to bring in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to bless the new guises of old songs stands as the decisive act, the emblem of the marriage with the prog universe in toto.

The luxurious garments stitched together by dense orchestral weaves tend, however, to clash with the songs' already imposing melancholic charge, often multiplying it out of all proportion. Only the excerpts from A Fine Day To Exit (the transformation of "Leave No Trace" into minstrel-like tragedy is spine-tingling) and from A Natural Disaster itself (the almost ambient version of "Are You There" and the markedly romantic take on the title track are equally masterful) feel truly at home, while the experiment suits the introverted, dense weaves of songs like "Fragile Dreams", "Inner Silence" or "One Last Goodbye" much less.

Choral grandeur, emotional charge and a sense of peace are the key words to try and describe the band's new formula, which, within a few months of being announced, would be carried to a first, essential - if still hybrid - peak. After a long and difficult search, none other than Steven Wilson takes an interest in the new life of the Cavanagh brothers' creation, seeing in them a possible new face - after Opeth and Riverside - of the transition from metal to prog. Signing to his Kscope label becomes as obvious as it is crucial a step in grasping the scale of an investment that would, within a few years, prove far more fruitful than even the rosiest predictions. Not content with that, Wilson also decides to personally oversee the making of what would turn out to be the most surprising and dazzling album of the Liverpool outfit's career: it's him behind the mixing desk on We're Here Because We're Here, the imposing gateway into a new sonic world, as well as the first album with which Vincent Cavanagh would be ready to declare himself one hundred percent satisfied. He would later also reveal how much the album represented for the band a kind of liberating cry after the repeated pains of the past, a notion also suggested by the album's beautiful cover art: "The cover is a sea, a planet, it's the atmosphere without gravity. It's a bizarre, surreal, strange image. It's cryptic. It's the metaphor for our inner world, for the earthquakes and inner storms that each of us, that man himself, often carries inside, in that intimate part of ourselves. Things we have to fight every day".

Feeling and human nature are the dominant themes of the whole album, whose title already offers a curious detail in itself: "Everyone knows the story of 'Auld Lang Syne', the song sung in the trenches of the First World War to lift the spirits of those who survived that relentless slaughter - Vincent explains - The spirit of those words touched all of us deeply and fit perfectly with everything we'd shared on every level, as individuals and as a band, over those last few years. We came out of those experiences more united, and we showed a great capacity to bounce back".

The opening of "Thin Air" thus rings out like a bolt of lightning that definitively clears the sky of any cloud: a plain, direct charge built on Daniel Cavanagh's penetrating guitar backbone, ready to turn limpid in the duet of "Everything", the first real showcase of Lee Douglas's role in the band. "Angels Walk Among Us", with the barely perceptible backing vocals of Ville Valo from the aforementioned Him, is a direct evolution of the symphonic discourse: there's still some residue of melancholy, but expressed with an unprecedented, overwhelming drive, also found in the more spartan (yet equally evocative) "Get Off Get Out". The languid "Presence" reverses the trend, bringing back a touch of the restraint set aside elsewhere, yet letting an underlying positivity seep through - something absent, however, in the pianistic torpor of "Summernight Horizon", the only real concession to the suffering of the past.

And while the bleak "A Simple Mistake" sounds almost like a self-critical invocation, the ending of "Hindsight" hands us back a band grappling with those shooting stars and comets invoked in the phenomenal, lengthy choral finale of "Universal". The latter effortlessly earns the title of masterpiece, shared with the pyrotechnic ending of "Hindsight" - a genuine declaration of ties to classic prog - and above all with the moving ballad "Dreaming Light", capable live of bringing people to tears, helped by a sensational melody and what remains to this day the most heart-wrenching vocal performance of Vincent Cavanagh's career.

Acclaimed by critics and by an ever-growing audience (in Greece it would reach number six on the album sales chart), We're Here Because We're Here is the unexpected blow, the triumphant comeback of a band that, for the third time in nearly twenty years, decides to change its face. But this time there's decidedly less room for nuance: too strong was the desire to finally throw open the doors of that world kept shut for years; too intense the resulting creative drive to be held back or contained. What results is the most personal and heartfelt work of their discography, surpassed in intensity only by the unsurpassable marvel that would follow it.

The tour following the album's release sells out across much of Europe and sees the band, for the first time, cross the threshold of the Old Continent to land, successfully, in America and Australia. Those two continent-sized countries would prove to be fertile ground for the birth of new and increasingly varied fanbases, ready to send the sales of the band's subsequent works soaring. The name Anathema is now definitively associated with the neo-progressive universe, and definitively detached from a past light years away from this new sonic universe. A distant past, but one never disowned by the band, who have never stopped feeling the need to reconcile it with such a different present: "There have been a number of misunderstandings between us and those who've watched us from the outside, first among them the idea that we were trying to change or forget our roots", Vincent explains, recounting the origins of the sequel to Hindsight that would see the light of day a few months later. "They were misunderstanding us, because everything we were doing and still do pays an enormous tribute to the music of our past, which we still love to this day. So we decided to show just how attached we still are to those melodies, but to do so in light of who we are today and the music we make today: hence, with an orchestra. It cost us a lot, and we expected not to make much out of it, but we didn't care". It's precisely out of this personal need, even before an artistic one, that Falling Deeper takes shape, a collection that goes back as far as material from the very first EPs The Crestfallen and Pentecost III, as well as a handful of tracks from Serenades and The Silent Enigma. Not exactly thrilling in its results - once again, the orchestral garb ends up fitting rather awkwardly on songs born wrapped in a heavy, dark fur like doom-death - the album is nonetheless an important document of the band's continuity over time, as well as an emblematic demonstration of the bond between the shadows of the past and the ever-stronger light of the present. And it's precisely the intensity of that present, by now uncontrollable, that drives Danny Cavanagh to keep tirelessly churning out material to put before his bandmates, to the point that, just days after the collection's release, Anathema announce they're working on their ninth album, which would land six months later with explosive force.

Ecstasy

Truth be told, I was never fully satisfied with any record of ours until 'We're Here Because We're Here'. And I wasn't as satisfied with that record as I am now with 'Weather Systems'. And maybe I'll be even more satisfied with the next one, or at least I'll try to be, because that's the only effective way to keep evolving. Of course, after this one it's really going to be tough...

(Vincent Cavanagh)

Just a few days before the recording of Falling Deeper, Les Smith left Anathema. It was the end of a love that never fully blossomed, the conclusion of a path that probably never truly satisfied the ex-Cradle Of Fifth member, who remained tied to the metal remnants that had made their last, muted appearance on A Natural Disaster. Alongside this primary reason for the split - justified by the man himself with the most predictable of "artistic and creative differences" - there was also John Douglas's growing interest in electronic music, which further narrowed the already limited space left for Smith. The keyboardist's departure was immediately filled by the arrival of Daniel Cardoso, a young and hugely talented Portuguese multi-instrumentalist already known for his work with Danny Cavanagh in Leafblade, and with a résumé packed with production and session credits. The enthusiasm and versatility of the new young member joined a host of other factors that, all converging, would make the band's imminent ninth album the unsurpassed masterpiece of their entire career. Written mostly on tour over the previous two years by a Danny Cavanagh at the peak of his powers, and recorded in just a few weeks under the essential guidance of producer Christer-André Cederberg, the nine wonders of Weather Systems stand as some of the most original and pure expressions of contemporary progressive music. Explaining the meaning behind the evocative title, Vincent Cavanagh reveals the most likely secret behind the record's energy and explosive force: "It's more than anything a metaphor to express an inner condition, the 'storm' is seen as an intimate conflict to be confronted. Once we finished the album we assessed the impact of each song: you could call it a concept album, but not in the traditional sense of the term, rather because each song, in its own 'crescendo', outlines an emotional landscape to settle into". Musically, Weather Systems marks the band's definitive embrace of its prog side, while shedding its more traditional baggage and even its own recent past: where We're Here Because We're Here still found us facing a rock band in every sense, the creature born on the new album abandons sharp edges and shadows without compromise.

Paradoxically, though, no Anathema record had ever managed to convey as much energy as is contained in "The Beginning And The End" alone, which also serves as the perfect litmus test for the band's evolutionary state and health: a hyperballad that starts out sustained only by piano before launching into an epic crescendo, ready to close on the Cavanagh brothers' guitar-driven choruses, whose new guise - melodic choral sweep without a trace of bite - immediately shows an uncommon capacity for impetus (emotional, not physical). The two parts of "Untouchable", dedicated respectively by Danny to his partner and to his mother, are masterpieces capable of striking straight to the heart on first listen: the first builds on the two brothers' and Lee Douglas's masterful vocal harmonies, before bursting into a storm out of a clear sky led by the guitars, while the second rebuilds the theme from scratch over orchestral canvases. The pairing of "The Gathering Of The Clouds" and "Lighting Song" is another heart-stopping double act: the clouds invoked in the murky depths of the first suddenly vanish in the serenade of the second, entrusted to Douglas's solo, heavenly and crystalline performance. The two-part "The Storm Before The Calm" deserves separate mention: the first is a spectral, rain-soaked interlude in which John Douglas begins to bring his interest in electronics into focus, the second yet another triumph, with Vincent and Lee this time called to converse with Danny's guitar. The gentle "Sunlight" offers a brief pause from the surrounding emotional triumph, while the drama of "The Lost Child" picks up the orchestral thread begun with the two collections of rediscovered older material, this time with even greater success.

It's no coincidence that "Internal Landscapes" is also the title of the record's spine-tingling closer: the sampled voice of the mysterious Joe Geraci - described by Vincent as "a man who 'has defeated his mortality'" - further emphasizes the message of hope hidden within the gradual ascent, from the opening acoustic arpeggios to the final electric wall of sound. Because Weather Systems truly is a collection of "internal landscapes", as well as one of the most intense, original and moving records of the new millennium.

Praised by critics internationally, the album sold more in a single month than its predecessors had managed over the years, breaking straight into the top 15 in Germany, Poland and Finland, and also earning strong placements in Britain and overseas. The world tour that kicked off promptly after the summer of 2012 sold out virtually everywhere, despite a packed schedule of dates. About halfway through it, the band decided to finally put to the test the possibility of combining their material with symphonic music: for the show at the striking location of the ancient Roman amphitheatre of old Philippopolis (today's Plovdiv), in Bulgaria, the six members were joined by the full local orchestra, all captured by director Leslie Hollie, who decided to turn the performance into a concert film. The stunning, unforgettable performance that night enthralled a crowd of up to thirty thousand people and was recorded and released by the now-trusted Kscope: first as a double LP titled Untouchable, and then, once the film project was complete, on the unmissable CD/DVD Universal. The result is a film that deserves to be shown in cinemas, a lesson in how to build a show of exceptional scale without resorting to gimmicks or special effects, in how to captivate and involve an audience through music in its purest form. It's the definitive consecration of the "third Anathema", the post-hiatus version of the band, which with just two albums to its name remains among the most essential and original forces in contemporary rock.

Toward a new beginning?

"We constantly analyze the music we produce, right up until the moment it's finished, and if possible even after that. But the way we approach modifying and steering our songs is based on an intuitive process: we listen and let the music itself tell us which direction to go. I think that's why our records always have such an organic and 'natural' sound.

(Daniel Cavanagh)

After the critical - and above all commercial - success of Weather Systems, the new record Distant Satellites arrives. Expectations are naturally high, fueled by the band's own statements and by curiosity around certain choices, among them the decision to write a song named after the band itself (fittingly titled "Anathema").

Roughly half the record proves anchored (or rather, fossilized) to compositional formulas that are by now well established, staying too comfortably within the shadow of the success of their recent past. The three "Lost Songs" are a blatant attempt to replicate the winning formula of "Untouchable", losing all naturalness and spontaneity along the way. The same goes for "Dusk" and "Ariel".

However, the second half of the record manages to deliver a shock right when you're about to resign yourself to an album running on autopilot. John Douglas, freed from drumming duties with Cardoso's arrival, lets loose in a flurry of synths and drum'n'bass that drives the surges of "You're Not Alone" and the ambient textures of "Firelight", right through to the dizzying title track, steeped in the style of Jon Hopkins.

The record's split into two halves is all too obvious, divided by one of the best tracks on offer, the epic anthem "Anathema". This divide raises a question about the band's future: will they continue down the path marked out by this experimental second half, or come to a halt?

The answer arrives in 2017 with The Optimist, but it seems far from positive. The record aims to serve as a sequel to A Fine Day To Exit, but the band sounds more tired than ever, thoroughly mired in the clichés and compositional devices it has increasingly leaned on since the stylistic shift of the past decade. The impression is that the tilt of the songwriting toward a heavily emotion-driven art-pop has by now become purely a matter of form rather than substance.

The result is sterile, largely predictable compositions, marked by the usual tricks of the trade - like the now-overused soft start, layering and final crescendo formula - wall of sound, ostinatos stuffed in everywhere and obsessive vocalizations that rarely manage to recapture the hypnotic pull of songs like "Release", from the 2001 record they seem to be trying to channel.

As for the individual performances, Vincent Cavanagh seems more withdrawn than ever, leaving plenty of room for Lee Douglas. A choice that could have been a great opportunity to showcase the blonde vocalist's splendid tone, but one that ends up squandered on flat, unconvincing vocal lines.

The feeling that the band has rested on its laurels and completely exhausted the golden vein it tapped into this past decade is unmistakable, and if this turns out to be the result of a conscious, deliberate choice, the band's future leaves little room for optimism.

…or towards the end?

Despite the noticeable dip in songwriting quality, the band continues to enjoy the proverbial following when it comes to live shows, thanks to the still consistently excellent quality of their performances. Wisely, the English band chooses to release a compilation, perhaps to catch their breath (and inspiration?), or perhaps to wrap up contractual obligations ahead of other prospects. And so in 2018 Internal Landscapes 2008-2018 is released, while in 2019 work on a new album is announced to be underway.

However, the devastating COVID-19 pandemic that erupted at the start of 2020 throws the band's plans into chaos and halts their tour. The blow seems as fatal as one might expect, until the day when, on September 23, 2020, the band posts an unsettling statement on their Facebook profile that casts a long shadow over the group's future:

“Dear Anathema family,

This is a year like no other.

We have all – including each and every one of you – faced unforeseeable challenges, which have had an impact on both our professional and personal lives. During this difficult time, this year's events have left us no choice but to take an indefinite break. As individuals, the time has come to pursue other paths in life.

We are extremely grateful for everyone's support over the years. There is no end to the love and respect we have for our fans for giving us the best years of our lives. The generosity you all showed after the unexpected cancellation of our tour will always stay with us. We could never have predicted how this year would turn out.

Thank you so very much.”

For further news we have to wait until May 2021, when a new solo work by Daniel Cavanagh is announced, titled Cellar Door, with no release date specified. It is also announced that, rising from the ashes of the band, a new project called Weather Systems has been born (a name that raises more than a few suspicions about what kind of sound it might have).

Unfortunately, what might have seemed like a sign of rebirth turns out to be nothing more than the prelude to a dramatic event: on May 21, 2022, the band posts unsettling news on their website, revealing Daniel Cavanagh's very serious health condition, as he is suffering from deep depression that led him to attempt suicide. However, they also share a message of hope, describing the beginning of a course of treatment the musician has voluntarily undertaken, in the hope that he may recover soon.

Monograph edited by Michele Bordi (1990-1999, 2014-present) and Matteo Meda (2001-2013)

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