FALLING DEEPER

Though I only own Anathema's music catalogue from Natural Disasters to the present, my feelings with regards to their music has remained fairly constant. I love their sound, I love their spiritually-minded lyrical messages, I love the flow and feel of their records, I just find their song-writing style too boring and repetitive: a song's opening riff or chord sequence is played start to finish with nary a flutter or flourish, ad nauseum; they're Post Rock/Math Rock's staunch poster child! But here, on Falling Deeper, the band may have stumbled upon their music's true purpose, it's best delivery style, it's most powerful presentation: the orchestrated soundtrack. Every song on this album is incredibly rich, hypnotically engaging, and lyrically sparse--all of which allow for a much more varied and deepened listening experience. Plus, the flow of this album's songs has an even tighter weave, each song seeming to be but a single 'movement' within the context of the whole. Bravo, Anathema! In my opinion, this is how all of your music should be presented.

5 stars for one of the most deeply engaging albums I've heard in a long time--an album I want to listen to over and over--especially for the opening and closing songs: masterpieces for the ages.