Anathema released an album called “Hindsight” in 2008. This album contained cover versions of some of the bands’ earlier songs. With the changes they did on their songs, they showed a different and still beautiful side of them. The positive thing about this release was that the covers were faithful to the originals. The only thing lacking from this album were songs from the early, more doomish days of the band.
“Falling Deeper” came to complete the thing that was missing from “Hindsight”.
In this new album there are songs like “Crestfallen”, “They Die” etc that belong to the more doom/heavy days of the band. But yet again there is a problem. Unlike “Hindsight” where the compositions are faithful to the original, here we have major changes. The epic, and 10 minute long “Crestfallen” has been reduced to 3 minutes. The track “Sleep in Sanity” loses 3 minutes from its original running time.
Most of you will tell me that the reduction of the lengthy songs is a good thing. They are becoming more radio friendly and less boring. I would accept that but there is the other thing. The song “Alone” has become from a 4 minute song to a 7 minute song. The song “J’ai Fait Une Promesse” has been lengthened from 2 minutes to 4 minutes.
This is the only drawback in this release. The compositions are really good and the band has shown that they are exceptional in creating melodic and emotional sounds. The album has a really psychedelic floydish vibe. For the needs of this album were used not 1, not 2, but 26 chords and a grand piano. In addition, in the song “Everwake” we can hear the beautiful vocals of Miss Anneke van Giersbergen.
“Falling Deeper” is a really good example of the music that Anathema wants to create from now on. It is not metal, it is not rock. It is something different that the band does really really good. If you are a fan of the atmospheric music and you have not heard of Anathema, this album is a good start. The fans of the band might be a little disappointed by the change of some tracks but all in all this is a good album.
