Eternity

Straight and to the point: I own close to 300 cds, and this, my friends, is the best of all of them. By a long shot. From the intro track "sentient" to the outro track "acension" (both godly instrumentals) this CD is pure perfection.

It is like a book that you open.. it catches your interest right away... it brings you to emotional highs and lows... and finally comes to a glorious conclusion.

Duncan Patterson, bassist of the band at that time, a musical genious, and an important influence in me, has written much of the material in this album.

This is where Vincent Cavanagh finds himself trapped between the passionate growls from The Silent Enigma (previous album) and the soft, harmonious vocals seen in Alternative 4 (latter album). This experimental mixture of singing and growling is, in my view, what makes this album so unique.

The Cavanagh brothers are in an all-time emotional downhill caused by the death of their ill mother. The consecuence: the most depressive lyrics you will ever read. If you understand this album, you will definately cry more than once listening to it.

Halfway though the album appears a cover of Roy Harper's "hope". Almost identical to the original in structure, Anathema's version differs only in one thing: it's got 100% Anathema's sound. But the loyalty to the original version is such that you can picture Roy Harper as the puppet master, pulling the strings and playing his own song through the band.

When "Eternity pt3" arrives, you can feel that the end of the album is coming. It's impossible to explain why, but this song's overwhelmingly powerful chords spell climax like you have never heard before. Then, "cies on the wind" sets the tone for the perfect ending for this album: "acension". When the music fades out.. you are not left wanting more.. everything has been said.

This is the concept album by definition. I don't even see the CD as a collection of songs. It is one entity... this is not one of those CDs from which you take a few songs to make your "best of". This CD itself is a "best of".. actually it is simply "best". It has been made to be played from start to finish, uninterrupted. You will never use the "random" option in your stereo.

This is Anathema at their best. But be warned: its not an easy album to get into. There are those who say that it's the band's worse album to prove it.

This is one of the best Anathema record ever to this day.It will stand to eternety. Fantastic sound, you will just be drawn away to a place inside your mind, dreamy and wonderfull, but still powerfull and full of energy. Gotich dark influences, some call this doom but their doom days where over with Serenades. This albums stands for it alone, it will goes in in the rock history for great album`s.Beautyfull singing, takes you through the hole specter of emotions, reflections and feelings. Great lyrics, great songs. Good harmonies takes the songs up to harder parties and down to mellow parties. They build their songs up like this, harder parties and down to mellow parties, guitar riffs, medly and back to lyrics and chourch. Into the song take another direction and opens a new univers of instrumential material.
You can hear it very good in the song Eternety part 1 and 2.
The opening intro to this record called Sentied is just wonderfull, played with synth. This album takes you there and back in a second, and you will ask for more. This is a hard album compare to their later relised- this record and Silent Enigma was their break from doom more and more, Serenades and Pentecost/crestfallen is their doom records with gruff singing voice. They have taken their music here on another level, you can hear that it`s doom influenced but not like their earlier records. This whole record is a masterpice. But if I have to recomend some of the songs her I would recomend Angelica, Eternety part 1,2 and 3, Far away and Cries in the wind.
Give this record a try, You won`t be disapointed.

First off, this should not really be classified as a metal album. Anathema are for all intents and purposes, an art-rock band, sort of a modern-day Pink Floyd. What sets this band above mere art rock and makes this quiet, dreamy music more than new age background music is sheer emotion. This is one of the most persuasive musical evocations of melancholy I've heard. Cascading keyboards, guitar acoustics and fragile crooning wash over the listener like waves, threatening to drown. The vague lyrics seem to romanticize death and suicide. Listening to this album makes me want to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills, and I mean that as a complement.