Anathema
We’re Here Because We’re Here

"How many of you have waited seven years for this album? It's an incredibly long time, it should never happen again, never again!"

With these words, Vincent Cavanaugh roused the audience during one of the Italian concerts in November 2011. We wholeheartedly agree. Many Anathema fans had probably resigned themselves, much like those of Guns n' Roses, to thinking that the successor to A Natural Disaster would never arrive. Yet since 2003, the English band was anything but idle: countless tours across Europe and the world, Danny Cavanaugh embarked on various solo ventures, and three years ago, Hindsight was released, an album of classics rearranged in an acoustic version. But as for original production, they languished. To be clear, they didn't have a contract. Three new tracks were presented on the official site which were supposed to be part of a new album titled Horizons, whose release date was progressively postponed from the end of 2008 to early 2009 to the end of 2009. A true ordeal, which finally concluded in the spring of 2010 with the release of We're Here Because We're Here. An enigmatic title that feels a bit like a mockery, accompanied by a mystical and sunny cover. A contract was reached with Kscope and production by Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson. Excellent premises indeed.

And indeed, the result proves to be quite valid. The sound after all this time has changed, and it takes just the first notes of Thin Air and the subsequent Summernight Horizon to realize it. The sound, as mentioned, has lost much of the Pink Floyd influences and Radiohead-like tones that characterized Judgment or later releases; these sounds have been abandoned in favor of the harder and distinctive tones of Anathema. In essence, it's as if they wanted to strip their music of excessive adornments to best express their true identity. Yet surprises do not fail. Dreaming Light, in fact, is a very sweet ballad led by simple piano chords over which Vincent Cavanaugh proves to any detractor that he can sing (very) well. It is followed by the sunny Everything, while the subsequent tracks, two moving and fine passages, bring us back to the group's best moments: Angels Walk Among Us (continued in the following Presence) has virtually no weakness and closely recalls that masterpiece which is Regret, while A Simple Mistake starts incredibly fragile and explodes into a dramatic chorus that will certainly captivate you when you see them live. Get off, get out is another great frenetic track, while Universal is surely the most interesting: the oblique tones and suspended atmospheres make it a fascinating and elusive track, incredibly hard to convey the emotions it exudes. It closes with Hindsight, which, however, was not present in the release of the same name, eight instrumental and extremely suggestive minutes, a very sweet track that nods to post-rock.

Although a significant chunk of experimentation has disappeared, which makes the new songs somewhat bare compared to classics like Deep or Balance (to name two at random), We're Here Because We're Here is an excellent album, which gives good hopes for the future. An album that claims to be the perfect Anathema album, without excessive mood swings or external influences oppressing the peculiar sound of the band. But also an album that at the same time demonstrates how the English still have grit, how they still know how to play with passion and feeling.

And a few weeks ago, the news of a new album arrived. Olé

7.5