THE SILENT ENIGMA

A first transitional album in the career of Anathema. The vocals are still extreme metal, but this time they are done by someone who can actually sing. The music is now much more atmospheric, with a lot of melodic passages.

The album starts with "Restless Oblivion" and "Shroud Of Frost", two classic doom songs which end with a nice spoken part. The acoustic track #3 is called "Alone", beautiful song in the vein of "Everwake". The track "Sunset Of The Age" is a very depressive song with clean vocals for the main part (nice haunting song, one of my favorites on this album). After two forgettable songs, the album ends nicely with "The Silent Enigma" (which was later re-recorded as a great orchestral version), "A Dying Wish" (really powerful guitars here) and "Black Orchid" (an instrumental musically built like "Pentecost III" on their previous album - a slow opening and a threatening ending).

Rating: 73/100