Sep 19

Danny Cavanagh and Anneke van Giersbergen team up to tour!

By bruce news No Comments »
Anathema’s Danny Cavanagh & The Gathering ex-singer Anneke Van Giesbergen will be teaming up again for a couple of special shows NEXT WEEK to celebrate the release of their new live album titled “in Parallel”. The dates are:
Sept 24 – ANTWERP, Belgium (Pandemonium)
Sept 25 – EINDHOVEN, Holland (Dynamo)
The album features live versions of classics from Anathema, Agua de Annique and the Gathering, along with cover versions such as ‘Teardrop’ (originally written from Massive Attack) and Damien Rice’s ‘The Blower’s Daughter’. The album has 15 tracks running over an hour in length.  The album was recorded at the Little Devil in Tilburg, March 2009.
Tracklist of in Parallel:
Teardrop
You Learn About It
Temporary Peace
Yalin
Songbird
Big Love
The Blower’s Daughter
One Last Goodbye
Are You There?
Day After Yesterday
A Natural Disaster
Lost and Found
Flying
Jolene
You can order the album from Agua de Annique webshop (http://www.aguadeannique.com/shop) and you can listen to some tracks from the album from Anneke’s Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/annekevangiersbergen).

Anathema’s Danny Cavanagh & The Gathering ex-singer Anneke Van Giesbergen will be teaming up again for a couple of special shows NEXT WEEK to celebrate the release of their new live album titled “in Parallel”. The dates are:

September 24 – ANTWERP, Belgium (Pandemonium)
September 25 – EINDHOVEN, Holland (Dynamo)

The album features live versions of classics from Anathema, Agua de Annique and the Gathering, along with cover versions such as ‘Teardrop’ (originally written from Massive Attack) and Damien Rice’s ‘The Blower’s Daughter’. The album has 15 tracks running over an hour in length.  The album was recorded at the Little Devil in Tilburg, March 2009.

Tracklist of in Parallel:

Teardrop
You Learn About It
Temporary Peace
Yalin
Songbird
Big Love
The Blower’s Daughter
One Last Goodbye
Are You There?
Day After Yesterday
A Natural Disaster
Lost and Found
Flying
Jolene

You can order the album from Agua de Annique webshop and you can listen to some tracks from the album from Anneke’s Myspace.

In_Parallel

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Jul 20

Anathema, Are you there? 2008 onwards

By bruce news, talking about bands No Comments »

Without a record label for 2003 – 2008, Anathema couldn’t do much.  They played a couple of live gigs and they released 3 free songs (which you could download from their website for free).  I’ve been to 2 of their gigs, one of them was at the ‘Unholy Trinity’ in the UK, and Anathema rocked the place.  Their stage presence, the atmosphere and the movement they created was by far better than that of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride.

Thanks to their switch to atmospheric rock, in 2008, they signed themselves with K Scope music, the same label of Porcupine Tree.  Thanks to this deal, they released Hindsight, a semi-acoustic album featuring old and new favourites from the band repertoire.  The album also contained a new track called Unchained.  The record has been arranged, recorded, performed and produced solely by the band.  The album also features cello playing of Dave Wesling, from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.  As a concept I thought it would be something like Metallica’s S&M, but it’s more polished, atmospheric and quiet.  You can listen to some of the tracks from the here, but if you still buy original cd’s, I suggest this should be part of your collection.

hindsight

What about now though?  Anathema should be working on the new album Horizons, which release date and other details still have to be released.  Though on their official site, they do not mention anything in particular regarding their new album.  In the news section they also state that “This new page is now well out of date”.   Although they have a good discography and a large army of fans, Anathema have always been a little bit too lazy with updating us what is happening, which is a pity as I am sure they have a lot of fans out there waiting to hear from them.  On their website, they have 3 tracks which you could listen to, Everything, A Simple Mistake and Angels walk among us.

Come on guys, give that extra push and put yourself together again, we are waiting for you.

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Mar 24

Looking back at Anathema’s masterpiece… Alternative 4

By bruce album review No Comments »

Alternative 4 reminds me of my teen years, listening to it on my way to school, in rock bars in the evening while head banging and getting drunk, and obviously at home. At some stage in my life I was listening to this album 24 hours a day and till today, it is still one of my favourite doom albums, so today I decided to listen to it again.

Impressive! Simple, clean, atmospheric, at the same time moving! Many doom albums are noisy to appreciate base guitar riffs, or to enjoy a good guitar solo where the guitar speaks for itself, instead of the guitarist showing off how technical his music is. Also, there is always an overload of sounds accompanying the music. Why should it always be raining and stormy weather that accompanies doom music? Or something creepy like the sound of opening doors from a horror house?

IMO Anathema delivered a good atmospheric doom metal album with style, without using fancy stuff. Minimalistic use of keyboards and sound effects, the introduction of the violin (Martin Powell ex My Dying Bride), simple catchy guitar riffs, depressing piano and at times fast pace music makes this album unique with very sharp sound.

Clean vocals and lyrics like “Life has betrayed me once again”, “I feel all alone in a crowded room” make this album a complete doom album with absolutely no place for improvements. The lyrics speak about trust and there is no Shakespearean English or hidden meanings, very direct and straight to the point. I would personally rate this album as a 10/10!

anathema

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