WE'RE HERE BECAUSE WE'RE HERE

After 2003's A Natural Disaster, Anathema slipped into a weird phase of their career, where they continued to play live shows and, according to interviews, write and record new songs, but without officially releasing any new music for a whole seven years. However, towards the end of the decade, a couple of demos started surfacing on the internet, and these were then finally assembled into a new album, We Are Here Because We Are Here, released in 2010 via Kscope. Packed with VIP guests ? from Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson behind the mixer to HIM's Ville Valo on backing vocals ? and sporting orchestral arrangements by Dave Stewart (Egg, Hatfield and the North, and another half dozen 70s cult bands), WABWAH is the classic album that screams new beginnings.

And, indeed, there are plenty of novelties on the album. A first difference, that is immediately apparent already from the very few notes of opener "Thin Air", is how brighter and lighter the album sounds relative to previous releases. Gone are the dark, low-register tones that had saturated with melancholy albums like A Fine Day to Exit and A Natural Disaster. The new compositions are all in a higher register, forcing Vincent Cavanagh to leave behind his beautiful, deep, lush crooning voice and to resort instead to higher-pitched, almost falsetto vocals on most songs. Lee Douglas ? who had appeared as guest singer on Anathema's albums since the times of Judgment ? now features as full-time member of the band and contributes ethereal vocals to tracks like "Everything" and "A Simple Mistake". The orchestral arrangements (performed by the London Session Orchestra) add a touch of lightness and spaciousness to the songs and Steven Wilson's mix, dry and clean, further defines the bright, if somewhat thin, sound of the album.

These sonic changes are matched by a dramatic shift in the themes and vibes of the songs. If A Fine Day to Exit and A Natural Disaster dealt, in their own ways, with the bitter aftermath of personal trauma, WABWAH captures the spirit of the new life and love that blossom after the trauma. The album title itself is a powerful, life-affirming statement of rebirth and renewal, and many of the lyrics on the album further underscore similar sentiments. There is actually one line on WABWAH that seems to openly acknowledge this change of direction, when on "A Simple Mistake" Vincent sings "We are not just a moment in time" ? which strikes me as a direct reference to the opening line of their breakthrough 1998's album Alternative 4, "We are just a moment in time".

It's a radical change for a band that only a few years prior used to sing "Life ... has betrayed me once again", and one that, no doubt, disconcerted early fans of the band who ? like me ? had always been attracted by the sombre melancholia of Anathema's music. But, as they say, as one door closes, another one opens, and Anathema's new sound immediately found ample consensus among progressive rock aficionados, attracted by the spacious and emotional listening experience of WAHBWAH. Personally, I still prefer the moody and dark atmosphere of earlier albums, but I respect the process of growth and development of the band and embrace their new musical direction.

However, I also think that WABWAH shows the stigmata of the transitional album, with some hit-and-miss results. Many of the songs are based on the same slow-build-to-climax formula, starting with simple clean guitar or piano arpeggios that are repeated throughout the track with varying intensity, before exploding in powerful and cathartic full-band outbursts. It's a compositional trick that Anathema had already started using on previous releases and that works very well on some tracks, like the emotive opener "Thin Air" and the more aggressive and uptempo "Summernight Horizon". Elsewhere, however, the formula grows a bit old and songs like "A Simple Mistake" or "Universal" feel somewhat stale. The flow of the album also does not feel completely right. Things start stuttering already with the duo "Dreaming Light" / "Everything", which I find very similar to one another in terms of structure and content. I think the two tracks would work better if they were placed at different points on the album rather than one next to the other. Moreover, there is a sensible dip in quality in the second half of the album, where we find songs that either feel somewhat uninspired and underdeveloped (the long, instrumental closer "Hindsight"), or that do not really fit at all with the rest of the album ("Get Off, Get Out", which would rather belong on a compilation of Radiohead outtakes).

Nevertheless, WABWAH also contains some very powerful moments. Opener "Thin Air" is a masterpiece in dynamics and becomes an irresistible fist-pumping sing-along in its second-half. I regret that the thin and clean sound of the album does not render full justice to this fantastic track, which sounds much better on the live albums that the band will subsequently release. "Angels Walk Among Us" and its organ-driven coda "Presence" are also beautiful tracks that contain some very emotional meditations about life after death. "Dreaming Light" and especially "Everything" are great tracks too, if taken individually.

Overall, with WABWAH Anathema turned a new page, leaving behind the dark and gloom of previous albums to embrace a lighter, brighter and more life-affirming outlook. It's a bold move from a band who has constructed its success on melancholia and pessimism, both during their doom/death days (Serenades / The Silent Enigma / Eternity) and in their more recent atmospheric rock phase (from Alternative 4 to A Natural Disaster). While fans of these earlier albums might be initially disoriented by the change of direction, fortunately Anathema are one of those rare bands that belong to a category of their own and, even in this new guise, they unmistakably sound like themselves. Thus, even if WABWAH is far from being perfect, it remains a worthy addition to their catalogue and an unmissable gateway to the new, "progressive rock" phase of their career.

[Originally posted on www.metal-archives.com]