Falling Deeper into Anathema

It took Anathema seven years to finish their latest album We're Here Because We're Here. Yet when the compilation album Falling Deeper came out on the fifth of September, it was only three years after its predecessor, Hindsight (released 2008). A mere comparison of numbers would reveal a troubling tendency – it is as if after 20+ of activity and constant changes in style, the band has exhausted its reserves and, rather than creating new material, has started to repackage old ideas. Neither do not bode well when considering the immense My Dying Bride's immense compilation Evinta from the end of May. As Evinta three months earlier, Falling Deeper is based on radical reworking of songs through (mostly) symphonic means. In the case of Evinta, new compositions altogether are born and that far Anathema's new compilation will not be going. Yet at the same time, the musical changes are considerably more radical as the more than 15-year-old material is rewritten distinctly with the band's modern handwriting.

If Hindsight had pretty much been representative of the band's modern repertoire, even putting them to an already familiar acoustic form (perhaps those saying that Hindsight is Daniel C. playing the band's songs acoustically were not really that far from the truth), then Falling Deeper glances more towards the band's doomy youth. No song is later than The Silent Engima album (1995) and a portion of attention is also given to Pentecost III – the last release with Darren White on board which so far has remained rather obscure. On this 1995. EP, Anathema is at its extremest and the core of Falling Deeper very much consists of new instrumental versions of the songs from the Pentecost III. Another telling part of the tracklist are Anathema's three “acoustic interludes” (Everwake, J'Ai Fait Une Promesse, Alone) which in their initial context formed the least important part of the album(s). In 2011 these short songs of few minutes have nearly been elevated as the most important on the compilation: if ten minute long doom metal tracks have been concentrated into soundscapes of few minutes, the afore-mentioned Alone is in essence doubled in length.

Concentration is also perhaps the reason why Anathema's Falling Deeper is a far more successful attempt than My Dying Bride's Evinta. Unlike it, Falling Deeper does not attempt to be a summary of the band's entire history but rather offers a new interpretation to a single period. Yet it is not the first time for Anathema to do that and parallels with the band's first compilation, Resonance (2001) are very much apparent. Here too the band's entire metal-period was interpreted through acoustic and symphonic remakes and in essence the orchestral version song The Silent Engima concurs with the concept of Falling Deeper ten years later. Because of this, most of early Anathema's lyrics are gone as well and this is where the compilation's desire for reinvention is apparent the most; if the “Kingdom” of Pentecost III is an abstract landscape of gloom and violence, then in its new form, it possesses almost a religious undertone. Still, the band has not completely changed its past and the band's promise of few years back never again to make depressive music has firmly been broken. The compilation's greatest success is one of the warmest sound in the band's history, but the compositions do remain faithful enough to their originals fifteen years back to make Falling Deeper in total more minor result than the recent We're Here Because We're Here. The new version of Alone is most remarkable in this regard as it rather goes out to expand the original's minimalistic via negativa. It is perhaps Anathema's most pessimistic recording since 2003 and the only on the compilation which forwards the emotion of early Anathema nearly unchanged. Despite the fact that Falling Deeper emphasises more on soundscapes than “ordinary” music, it will not remain stuck in the genre of ambient or “background music” and the closing track, Sunset of Age, does surprise with its more rock-like approach in the spirit of We're Here Because We're Here.

How does, however, Falling Deeper fall together with the rest of band's material? The title quite aptly sums up the content and perhaps the FD's greatest consequence would be, for the listener of “new” Anathema, the elevation of their early work from obscurity. One can hope that a few of the compositions here would actually reach the band's repertoire during live shows. Yet the dramatic difference between the new and old Anathema does remain a focal point and this difference is rather further deepened than resolved. Even if we discard the transformation of the songs from 'doom metal' to 'atmospheric rock' much of original content is lost in the compression. The proportion is comparable to that between a trailer and a full-length movie one does not have to be a fanatic of early Anathema to mind that. Still, the new versions are wholly masterful, creative and beautiful and the compilation itself bears the characteristics of a band fully content with its direction.