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Anathema to Release A Sort of Homecoming Concert Film and Live Album

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 28th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

Hey, you know who saw Anathema earlier this year? Me. I did. It was frickin’ great. It wasn’t at a cathedral, but it was at Roadburn, which is about as close as I come to a house of religious worship, so there. The long-running, long-progressing UK outfit had played Liverpool Cathedral only about a month before, however, and it’s that show that will be released as A Sort of Homecoming on Oct. 30 via Kscope. The material is mostly recent, but they manage to sneak a couple older cuts in there too, and if the cover is anything to go by, it looks like the setting is half the point. Look at that ceiling. I’d record a live album too if presented the opportunity.

And the title? Well, they’re from Liverpool, so there you go. Also, I love that Vincent Cavanagh compares it to Erebor. Fantastic.

The PR wire brings copious info and a trailer for the release:

anathema in liverpool cathedral

KSCOPE PRESENTS: ANATHEMA’S “A SORT OF HOMECOMING,” A CONCERT FILM BY LASSE HOILE FROM ANATHEMA’S LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL SHOW

“A Sort of Homecoming” to be released on Blu-ray, 2CD + DVD-V, LP and digital download on October 30

Anathema, one of the U.K.’s most cherished and critically acclaimed rock bands, will release a live Blu-ray/audio collection entitled A Sort of Homecoming on October 30 via Kscope. Directed by Lasse Hoile (Steven Wilson, Katatonia, Opeth), A Sort of Homecoming is a stunning concert film of Anathema’s homecoming show on March 7, 2015 in the spectacular setting of the Liverpool Cathedral. The concert was described by Prog Magazine as “a once in a lifetime experience that words can barely do justice.”

“I’m really happy that this night in particular has been preserved,” commented Anathema guitarist/vocalist, Vincent Cavanagh. “As anyone from Liverpool will tell you, to be given the chance to play the Anglican Cathedral is monumental and a huge honor. The place is absolutely huge. Just look at the cover, it was like doing a gig in Erebor!”

Having previously worked with Anathema on the acclaimed Universal concert film, Lasse Hoile captured the 100 minute acoustic set in high definition against the sensational backdrop of Liverpool Cathedral. Featuring 15 songs selected from the albums Distant Satellites, Weather Systems, We’re Here Because We’re Here, A Natural Disaster and Alternative 4, the ‘Anathema Acoustic’ trio of Daniel Cavanagh, Vincent Cavanagh and Lee Douglas were joined by rhythm section John Douglas and Jamie Cavanagh, alongside their very talented close friend David Wesling on cello who also played on Hindsight (2009) and A Moment In Time (2006). For this exclusive performance the band was also joined by the renowned violinist, Anna Phoebe, on a haunting rendition of “Anathema.” The audio has been produced and mixed by Christer-André Cederberg who worked on Distant Satellites, Universal and Weather Systems, with the cover and booklet artwork featuring the stunning photography from the show and behind the scenes by long time collaborator Caroline Traitler. This is the first Anathema live release to feature a 5.1 audio mix, engineered by Bruce Soord.

Kscope will release A Sort of Homecoming as:

– 4 disc box set: 2 CD concert audio (100 mins), DVD with full concert plus an additional behind the scenes film “A Temporary Peace” and concert on Blu-ray disc. In a deluxe rigid media book with 36 page booklet, presented in a slipcase

– 2CD + DVD-V: The set features the full 100 minute audio and DVD-V of the concert with 5.1 audio mixed by The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord

– Blu-ray disc: The full 100 minute concert plus an additional behind the scenes film “A Temporary Peace” with 5.1 audio mixed by The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord

LP: A gatefold triple 180g black vinyl LP including MP3 download code

Digital: Concert audio only

All formats, excluding digital download, are available to pre-order via the Kscope web-store at: www.kscopemusic.com/store.

1. The Lost Song Part 2
2. Untouchable Part 1
3. Untouchable Part 2
4. Thin Air
5. Dreaming Light
6. Anathema
7. Ariel
8. Electricity
9. Temporary Peace
10. The Beginning And The End
11. Distant Satellites
12. Take Shelter
13. Internal Landscapes
14. A Natural Disaster
15. Fragile Dreams

Anathema will continue to tour throughout the remainder of 2015. A full list of dates can be seen below.

Anathema live…
8/31 – Tokyo, Japan @ Liquid Room
9/01 – Tokyo, Japan @ Liquid Room
9/05 – Sao Paulo, Brazil @ Overload Music Festival
9/07 – Porto Alegre, Brazil @ Opiniao (w/ Paradise Lost)
9/08 – Rio, Brazil @ Circo Voador (w/ Paradise Lost)
9/11 – Atlanta, GA, USA @ Prog Power Festival
10/01 – Moscow, Russia @ Volta
10/02 – Minsk, Russia @ Re:Public
10/03 – St Petersburg, Russia @ Avrora
10/23 – Christchurch, NZ @ Dux Live
10/24 – Auckland, NZ @ Kings Arms
10/27 – Adelaide, AUS @ The Gov
10/29 – Brisbane, AUS @ Triffid
10/30 – Sydney, AUS @ Metro Theatre
10/31 – Melbourne, AUS @ Corner Hotel
11/01 – Perth, AUS @ Rosemount Hotel
11/04 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Cathedral
11/05 – Paris, France @ Église Saint-Eustache (acoustic)
11/06 – Bochum, Germany (acoustic)
11/07 – Leipzig, Germany @ Täubchenthal (acoustic)
11/09 – Utrecht, Netherlands @ TivoliVredenburg
11/10 – Mannheim, Germany @ Capitol (acoustic)
11/11 – Sofia, Bulgaria @ Royal Bulgaria Hall (acoustic)
11/15 – 11/19 – Miami, FL, USA @ Cruise To The Edge

www.anathema.ws
www.facebook.com/weareanathema
www.twitter.com/anathemamusic
http://www.kscopemusic.com/artists/anathema/

Anathema, A Sort of Homecoming trailer

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Anathema, Weather Systems: The Change that’s Always in the Air

Posted in Reviews on March 27th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

More than 20 years into their career since starting in 1990, Anathema are nothing if they’re not divisive. Even among the most dedicated, loyal members of their fanbase (more of a cult, really) one will often hear arguments in favor of or decrying this or that era of the band – their death/doom beginnings as one of the Peaceville three alongside My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost, the semi-gothic dramatic melody of what’s now their mid-period work, or the melo-prog elements that have surfaced in their sound since 2008’s Hindsight found them revisiting and rearranging older material with a decidedly new look. Their new studio album, Weather Systems, follows another such revisiting, last year’s Falling Deeper (review here), which in a fascinating process took musical and lyrical pieces of their death/doom songs and breathed new life into them – somewhat more complex than the rearrangements of Hindsight, but also further from what the songs originally were as a result. Before Falling Deeper, Anathema had what was then their first studio outing of new material in seven years. That was the long-awaited We’re Here Because We’re Here, released through Kscope Music in 2010 with eventual North American issue by The End Records last year. Kscope and The End align again with the band to release Weather Systems, as Anathema dives deeper into the rich melodic and progressive course that We’re Here Because We’re Here seemed to be steering toward.

And as ever, it’s an album that no doubt will spark and continue many a debate about which Anathema era is the strongest. Tracks based on the weather thematic like “Lightning Song,” “The Gathering of the Clouds,” “Sunlight” and the nine-plus-minute exercise in contrast, “The Storm Before the Calm” speak to some thread running throughout, but as much as guitarist Vincent Cavanagh’s vocals shine here as they always do and Lee Douglas has stepped up her presence in the band’s songwriting, there are parts of Weather Systems that simply sound over-produced and that ultimately take away from the emotion Anathema is trying to convey, which has always been at the center of what they do no matter what the material might actually sound like or which genre it might be aligned or not aligned with. On “The Storm Before the Calm,” for example, the first half – presumably “the storm” – features dated-sounding electronic drums that gradually build amid a cloud-swirl of vocals repeating the line “It’s getting colder,” reminding of something A Perfect Circle might have been able to convince themselves was groundbreaking more than a decade ago, building gradually to a mash of abrasive noise that eventually gives way to silence – i.e., “the calm.” That back half of the track is one of Weather Systems’ finest moments, with Danny Cavanagh’s piano backing his brother’s and Douglas’ gorgeous, lush and fully-engaged vocals amid strings, drum punctuation from John Douglas, a triumph of guitars and melodic delivery taking hold and swaying the song to its finish. It’s a beautiful, stunning stretch, and I’d gladly point to it as an example of the kind of dramatic potency this era of Anathema can produce at its best – one can’t help in listening but be affected by it – but the more I listen, the more I wish “The Calm” and “The Storm” had been two separate tracks so I could skip the one to get to the other.

That specific kind of unevenness persists, and Weather Systems seems to be executed in movements of it. Opening duo “Untouchable Part 1” and “Untouchable Part 2” offset overdone vocal arrangements in their first part (the “prog” influence comes out as well in fast-picked guitars and double-time drumming) with a simple, piano-driven hook in the second, Vincent and Lee turning in one of the album’s most impassioned vocal performances complemented by characteristically swirling guitar melodies and the effective underlying bass of Jamie Cavanagh. Right away, Weather Systems, like life, like the meteorology for which it’s named, has its ups and downs. “The Gathering of the Clouds” takes the frenetic picking of “Untouchable Part 1” and partners it with a more effective vocal build, layers piling on so that by the time John’s bass drum comes in to provide extra push, the song almost doesn’t need it for the energy it conveys, cutting with strings to the more subdued but still in-motion “Lightning Song.” Lee takes the fore on vocals here and proves able to carry the track on her own without any trouble, but when a distorted guitar introduces itself at 3:16 with two quick chugs before taking full hold of the song, the tone sounds thin and doesn’t produce the same kind of chill up the spine as it otherwise might, or as the subsequent “Sunlight” does almost with John’s drums alone as its build pays off toward the end. Nonetheless, that’s one of Weather Systems’ heaviest movements and something fans clamoring for that side of their sound – which so effectively propelled standout tracks like “Panic” from 2001’s A Fine Day to Exit and “Pulled Under at 2,000 Metres a Second” from 2003’s A Natural Disaster – will cling onto in listening.

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Anathema, Falling Deeper: Le Saule S’Incline Dessus du Ruisseau

Posted in Reviews on November 10th, 2011 by JJ Koczan

If Anathema’s career has been typified by anything, it’s a definite progression. The UK outfit – now in their 21st year – released We’re Here Because We’re Here last year and showed themselves to be fully entrenched in melodic and progressive rock; much of the melancholy that had served as the emotional crux of past works had vanished, and it seemed like even in the album’s most painful moments, the band was aware of the beauty in their sadness. Their newest outing, Falling Deeper (Kscope), follows suit in terms of mindset and doubles as a companion piece for 2008’s revisitation of older material, Hindsight, as well. Falling Deeper, true to its name, delves even further back into Anathema’s formidable catalogue, providing new arrangements and takes on material from some of the band’s earliest releases: the Crestfallen EP (1992), Serenades (1993), and Pentecost III and The Silent Enigma (both issued 1995). But it’s not just new arrangements. Songs like “Kingdom” and “They Die” have been given new life, reborn as gorgeously melodic excursions distilled from their original melodies, which seemed buried at the time under an ash cloud of despair. Dave Stewart, who arranged the strings for We’re Here Because We’re Here exceeds expectation on Falling Deeper, working with the London Session Orchestra, and together with the vocals of Daniel and Vincent Cavanaugh and Lee Douglas, the strings turn the beautifully wretched into just the beautiful. There are those whose sentimental attachments to the original incarnations of these songs will prevent them from enjoying the new versions, but as Anathema’s stylistic development has seen them long since move past their death/doom beginnings, nothing here should really come as a surprise to fans of the band on a conceptual level.

Interesting to note that as Anathema reworks these older songs, they do so with four-fifths of their original lineup intact. Daniel and Vincent Cavanaugh both handle guitar and vocals (the former also keys), brother Jaime Cavanaugh is on bass, and John Douglas drums. Long gone is the forlorn growl of Darren J. White, but with Lee Douglas (sister to John) taking a prominent role here among Daniel and Vincent, and a guest spot from Anneke Van Giersbergen on “Everwake,” there’s a lush complexity to these songs that lacks nothing in its presentation. Still, much of the material has been boiled down from its original form. “Alone” and “Sunset of Age” are the only two inclusions from The Silent Enigma, and as that album could be considered the launch point for the melodic growth that came to bear in the band’s sound over the course of subsequent albums Eternity (1996) and Alternative 4 (1998), it’s not necessarily surprising that they’re some of the most recognizable here. On the other hand, lines like “Is there a reason why you punish our children?/And rape our sisters?” are gone from “We the Gods,” which arrives as an instrumental toward the end of Falling Deeper and is truncated from its original 10 minutes to just over three. Likewise, opener “Crestfallen” plucks the album’s title line from the original version of the song and sweetly repeats it over piano and strings. In less gorgeous arrangements, the entire proposition would be offensive, but as they seem perpetually able to do, Anathema prove that nothing creative is sacrosanct. “Crestfallen” moves smoothly into “Sleep in Sanity,” which was already lyrically minimal in its initial form. Douglas’ drums provide a base for the layers of strings and vocals to triumph without being a complete wash of melody, and together with “Kingdom,” which follows, mark some of Stewart’s best work on the album.

There are ebbs and flows throughout Falling Deeper, and at times like the beginning of “Kingdom,” it feels like the band is hardly there. The song gradually builds though into one of the collection’s most satisfying, a steady undercurrent of percussion reminding of the plod of the original without being out of place, adding to the linearity of the structure. Electric guitar amp noise adds to the climax of “Kingdom,” and a long drone transitions into the piano opening of “They Die,” just 2:13 on Falling Deeper but no less melodically engaging than anything that comes before or after. One thing noticeable in listening is just how much Anathema is able to cull from what are essentially fractions of songs. Nothing here feels incomplete, nothing feels lacking. The songs here are completely different than what they used to be, but there’s a certain liberation in that. Van Giersbergen, whose voice defined in no small part a generation of female lead vocals in European melodic metal, seamlessly works through the verses of “Everwake,” and if anything on the album feels cut too short, it’s that. Fitting that at 3:07, this new take is longer than that which appeared on Crestfallen. It makes sense, somehow.

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Making Peace with Anathema

Posted in Buried Treasure on July 29th, 2010 by JJ Koczan

In the spirit of the other day’s Buried Treasure post, I thought I’d make it known that after initial dejection and first encounters tainted by prejudice against it, I’ve finally and officially come to make peace with UK melodic proggers Anathema‘s latest album, We’re Here Because We’re Here.

This has been an emotionally charged process. First they didn’t tell me the album was coming, I had to find out and order it on Amazon and wait weeks for it to arrive, then I had to get over the fact that it’s neither A Fine Day to Exit nor A Natural Disaster, but rather a different, brighter sound altogether. We’re Here Because We’re Here is unrepentantly not the album I wanted and hoped it would be, and while it’s true I don’t know Anathema and they don’t owe me notice or anything else and it’s been seven years since the last album came out, you bet your ass I took it personally. But, I put the disc on while I was in the car last week on a trip I knew would be long enough to sustain a full sitting, and after that, I’m not ready to say I’m a full-blown convert, but I’m not holding a grudge either.

I’m sure everyone reading this and the band themselves will sleep better for knowing, so I just thought I’d share.

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Anathema Put a New Album Out, Don’t Even Bother to Call

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 14th, 2010 by JJ Koczan

Hey, what gives, Anathema? How’re you gonna go ahead and put out an album TWO WHOLE WEEKS ago and not tell me about it? I thought we were friends (and by “friends,” I mean I worship everything you do and you have no idea who I am)! What, my three copies of Alternative 4 aren’t good enough for you anymore? I know maybe I didn’t take out A Natural Disaster as much as I should have this winter, but give me a break, it’s been seven years! And now this???

Well fine, Anathema. Have it your way. Out of sheer annoyance, I just put in an order on Amazon for We’re Here Because We’re Here. So congratulations. Now, after having to find out on The Metal Archives (of all places!) about the existence of this record, I’m going to have to wait another two weeks minimum to hear it while it’s shipped from Switzerland or god knows where because I’m too afraid Vintage Vinyl won’t have the import. I’m feeling more than a little betrayed here, Anathema.

I mean, seriously, would a phone call have been too much to ask? An email? Just a quick, “Hey there guy, we know you’ve been waiting seven years for a new Anathema CD and we just wanted to let you know it’s finally coming out.” I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

Fair enough. You want to go ahead and put out albums and not tell me, that’s just great. We’ll see if you get included in the all-British podcast to come later this month (you probably will). I’m hurt, Anathema. Deeply hurt. It’s gonna take a while to get over this one. If only I had some super-melancholic melodic rock to act as sonic accompaniment for my woes. Oh well, I guess there’s always Paradise Lost

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I’m Sick of Seeing Anathema Tour Dates Not Including Anywhere in the US

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 11th, 2009 by JJ Koczan

They say, "Ha ha ha, no WAY we're coming to America, douchebag!"Okay, so influential UK doomers/atmospheric melodic rockers Anathema have announced tour dates, and guess where they’re not going, again? That’s right, America. Not even one show? Come on, man. Give me a New York show! How hard is that? If you need a place to crash, there’s plenty of room here in the valley.

What a shitter. In the meantime, here’s the tour dates for any lucky-ass North African, European or Latin American types who happen to have found their way here:

Apr. 04 – Acropolium of CarthageCarthage Tunisia
Apr. 29 – Palace HalBucarest Romania
May 05 – Incrivel AlmadenseLisbon Portugal
May 06 – Teatro S? da BandeiraPorto Portugal
May 07 – Santana 27Bilbao Spain
May 08 – Penelope Madrid Spain
May 09 – El TrenGranada Spain
May 10 – Nave 8Alicante Spain
May 11 – Salamandra 1Barcelona Spain
May 27 – Hard Rock Live Mexico City DFMexico
May 28 – La BungaQuito Ecuador
May 31 – ND AteneoBuenos Aries Argentina
Jun. 02 – Teatreo CaupolicanSantiago Chile
Jul. 04 – Fonofest Cesis (near Riga)Latvia
Jul. 05 – With Full Force FestivalLeipzig Germany

And here’s Anathema doing an acoustic version of new song “Angels Walk Among Us” (the video is mislabeled), also not in America.

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