AN ILIAD OF WOES

My cassette player and the even worse 10 years old cassette demo has been brougth into action again.

As far as I gather, noone of the songs from the demo, Anathema's debut recording, has been included in one of the Anathema albums. I can understand why. The music is a mix of death metal and doom metal. It is unlike anything Anathema did later. It does not even have the same sound. The songs are long, but that's it. The sound quality is.......... well, like a demo, recorded back those days on a cheap tape recorder.

The quality is not too bad. The sound though kills the demo and I therefore have to award it with a one star. Maybe death/doom fans will strongly disagree with me here. So be it.

1 star

This is Anathema's demo that includes 4 songs that were never released in any other way. It is totally black/doom metal with 100% growling vocals and heavy instrumentals. The recording is not very good and, even though there are hints to the greatness they would later achieve with some better than normal compositions, it gets really old by the time you get only half way through the 2nd track. The tracks are long, but don't offer much in the way of dynamics or variety, it's just loud with a lot of rhythmic changes. Not an enjoyable listen, but it is interesting from a historic viewpoint because it is their early attempts at becoming the great band they would later be.

Stay away from this unless you are an avid fan and you need everything they have recorded no matter how bad it is. All others should check out their later work which is much better.