THE OPTIMIST

I'll keep it simple on this one: next-to-perfect. After about 20 or so spins the anthematic (is that a word; if not it should be) Anathema rises from what some see as a recent slump of semi-decent albums (in my humble opinion) to an album I can't put down.

The Optimist strikes such high notes - and emotionally low lows I'm not used to hearing from this band - flowing song to song in the story continued from A Fine Day to Exit.

My brief takeaway from about 20 spins:

- Dark and melancholic

- Stunning production

- Not dull as a lot of Distant Satellites was for me

How is it that this band doesn't fill stadiums and is not a household name? Sadly, there is no justice in the music scene.

Why, Anathema? Why?

Distant Satellites was by no means a bad album. It had even truly brilliant moments. But its experimental parts were too vague and disoriented. And The Optimist is sadly a follow-up of all this. We can hear a band trying to retrieve the alternative feeling of A Fine Day to Exit without achieving that, offering a monotonous and repetitive collection of songs unworthy of a band with this status.

32.63N 117.14W is just a brief introduction to Leave it Behind, which starts with the typical Anathema guitar, which automatically bring to mind the most alternative records of the band like the aforementioned A Fine Day to Exit or A Natural Disaster, despite its horrible electronic rhythm at the beginning of the song. But the song it's too repetitive to be considered a brilliant track, and the instrumental interlude is just awful.

Endless Ways brings the much appreciated Lee's voice and the album automatically get better. In addition, the orchestral arrangements of the song are beautiful. Sadly this track is also too repetitive for my taste, but better than The Optimist nevertheless, which is a dull and absolutely not inspired song, despite its fine guitar melodies towards the end. Till this point the quality of the album is not good, but acceptable.

But then we find San Francisco... A piano melody which repeats itself during four minutes without any kind of progression or interest, apart from its U2-type guitars. What the hell is that? Are you trying to cheat us, guys? And Springfield is even worse, another swindle with absurd lyrics and repetitive melodies... Again. Because that's the main problem of this album. The melodies and compositions are Ok, but the repetition of the same melodies again and again in almost every song give an impression of vagrancy and lack of compositional work that deeply disappoints me coming from one of my favorite bands.

Luckily, Ghosts is the best track of The Optimist. Very beautiful orchestral arrangements (this album is pretty symphonic) and vocal melodies from Lee, who sings a rather brief text. That's another interesting point of the album... The lyrics are pretty short in words and ideas. I don't really know the goal of this very minimalistic approach in the lyrics, but that's also a disappointment coming from a band with wonders like One Last Goodbye.

Can't Let Go is more lively and more guitar-oriented. Vincent's voice sounds very contained, like in the whole album... And that's also a shame, because his voice was so incredible in the previous albums! Nevertheless, it's a good song. In opposite to Close Your Eyes, another boring and insipid moment with uninspired lyrics. Only the final part with wind instruments which reminds me to Van Der Graaf Generator deserves a mention.

Wildfires is one of the lowest points of the album. Depressing, repetitive and with horrible vocal effects. I really don't know how a track like that could make it into the final record. Even the typical increase of intensity in its final part is foreseeable and lame. But Anathema had mercy of us and they managed to put a decent song at the end of the CD named Back to Start, which contains good verses with a warm interpretation from Vincent and good piano melodies. The chorus is not so good and so is the final part, unnecessarily bombastic and pretentious. This could have been a good ending for a better album... But after the average or directly bad content of The Optimist, Back to Start is just utterly overblown.

Conclusion: The Optimist would be an average release for a novel band. But talking about Anathema, this record is their worst album, including their doom metal ones. A repetitive, uninspired and pretentious collection of songs with a worrying lack of ideas and direction. The attempt to retrieve the alternative rock of A Fine Day to Exit failed, and despite the orchestral arrangements the musicians don't shine like in other records of the band.

I really hope that they make it better in their next album, because after the just decent Distant Satellites and this mediocre The Optimist, I am really not so optimistic about the future of the band.

Best Tracks: Ghosts, Can't Let go, Back to Start.

My rating: **

After three albums that treaded very similar musical territories, inevitably succumbing to the law of diminishing returns (We Are Here Because We Are Here/Weather Systems/Distant Satellites), with 2017's The Optimist Anathema finally changed direction and wrote an album that is a point of union between the band's output at the turn of the century (Judgment/A Fine Day to Exit/A Natural Disaster) and their most recent releases. The connections with A Fine Day to Exit are particularly strong, given that The Optimist is actually a continuation of the concept initiated on that album. A Fine Day to Exit revolved around the story of a man who, overwhelmed by life's pains, leaves his family and drives to the ocean, with the intention of committing suicide. As the album progresses, the man's inner struggles slowly starts to resolve as he finds inner strength to come back up from his demise. The Optimist brings this beautiful story of fall and rebirth to its conclusion, with the man leaving the beach that he had reached to end his life and traveling back to his family ? to start his life anew.

Needless to say, being a huge fan of A Fine Day to Exit ? which I consider the highest point in Anathema's career ?, I was super-excited when the band announced that The Optimist was a continuation of that album. I was also mildly anxious, though, because I didn't not really consider any of Anathema's latest three releases up to the level of their earlier catalogue, especially their "golden" period between 1998 and 2003. Fortunately, my concerns were unfounded. Although The Optimist does not reach the levels of A Fine Day to Exit (and, frankly, neither of Judgment or A Natural Disaster), it is nevertheless a strong album and probably the strongest that the band has released since they came back from their "recording hiatus" in 2010.

The strength of The Optimist does not lie so much in its individual tracks, but rather in the way the album flows throughout its 58 minutes. This is a crucial difference between The Optimist and the three previous albums the band released since 2010. Those albums contain individual tracks that are probably stronger than any of the songs on The Optimist (for example, "Thin Air", "Everything" "Untouchable Pt 1 and Pt 2", "The Storm Before The Calm"). But they also contain subpar tracks and songs that do not really fit with the rest of the album ("Get Off, Get Out" on We Are Here Because We Are Here; "You're Not Alone" on Distant Satellites). Those earlier albums are also fairly unbalanced, with a typically strong first half and a more tentative and faltering second half. The 11 songs on The Optimist perhaps cannot reach the heights of some of those earlier superb Anathema's tracks, but they are much more homogeneous in style and quality, and they fit much better with one another. As a result, the album feels more balanced and cohesive, and the listener does not have any impulse to use the "skip" button of their remote control ? which I am often tempted to do when I put on We Are Here Because We Are Here, Weather Systems and Distant Satellites. This is something I appreciate a lot in a full-length album, as I want a listening experience that gives me more than a simple collection of songs: I want the album to take me on a journey and leave me more than the sum of its parts. The Optimist succeeds in this where the previous three albums had failed.

As I mentioned earlier, musically The Optimist is a cross between the dark atmospheric metal the band produced in the late 90s / early 00s, and the cinematic prog/post rock of the more recent releases. The guitars are more present here compared to the most recent three albums, marking a welcome return to a sound with a tad more bite than on those albums. The Optimist is also darker (probably due to the subject matter), and the dose of big melodies and life-affirming lyrics is sensibly reduced relative to the previous three albums. I cannot hide the fact that I am actually very glad about this. I respect the band for choosing to wear their heart on their sleeves (and this is indeed one of Anathema's best qualities), but the positive vibes of the last three albums did not quite resonate with me as much as the dark melancholia of their previous catalogue. Melancholia seeps in again through the songs of The Optimist, and for this reason I feel a stronger connection with this album than any of the previous three.

The Optimist features some tasty strings arrangements, although the role of the orchestra is a little less prominent than on Distant Satellites or Weather Systems, probably due to the stronger role played by the guitars on The Optimist, or perhaps due to the different arrangements of new collaborator Paul Leonard-Morgan, who replaces Dave Stewart as orchestral arranger. The change of producer may have also contributed, with Tony Doogan (Mogwai; Belle & Sebastian) stepping in for Christer-André Cederberg (In the Woods?) who had produced the latest two albums.

On the other hand, there are also many points of similarity between this album and We Are Here Because We Are Here, Weather Systems and Distant Satellites. The electronic experiments of the latter are reprised on a number of tracks on The Optimist. Opening track "Leaving It Behind" is a clear example. More generally, The Optimist is the most electronic-oriented album in the band's whole discography, with beats and scratches surfacing at several points through the album. The switch of John Douglas from drumming to keyboards/programming (Daniel Cardoso now sitting behind the kit) has probably played a large role in this development. Another point of contact between The Optimist and the previous three albums is a songwriting style that privileges the use of dynamics and dramatic post-rock crescendo, escaping the logic of verse/chorus structures in favor of repeated piano or guitar loops that vary in intensity as the song progresses. Tracks like "Springfield" and "Wildfires" are great examples of this. However, on The Optimist we also find more traditional song structures, with alternation of verses and choruses, which the band tended to use on earlier albums. I think this variation in songrwriting approaches is actually a strength of the album, compared to the previous three releases that were packed with drawn-out post-rock structures to the point of spoiling a bit the listening experience.

I said earlier that the strength of the album does not lie as much on the individual tracks as on the whole flow of the album. Nevertheless, a few songs stand out, such as the beautiful elegiac "Endless Ways", which features a great solo spot by Lee Douglas (probably her best performance with Anathema, after the immortal "A Natural Disaster"). "San Francisco" is an engaging instrumental track mixing an obsessive piano loop with electronica: this is probably the most accomplished instrumental track Anathema has managed to write in their career. I am also very fond of the moody, Radiohead-esque "Can't Let Go" and the sultry jazz piece "Close Your Eyes", which again sees a Lee Douglas in great form.

Overall, The Optimist is a sort of rebirth for Anathema, after three albums that I found a bit too similar to one another, suggesting the terrifying prospect that the band might have started to run out of new ideas. The Optimist brings a breath of fresh air, taking inspiration from the band's past catalogue and merging together the dark melancholic rock of A Fine Day to Exit with the more recent progressive / post-rock inclinations of the band. Although The Optimist does not reach the level of masterpieces like A Fine Day to Exit or Judgment, it is certainly a welcome return to form for the band, and possibly their best record since A Natural Disaster.

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

A collection of wonderfully engaging, melodic songs all melding together quite well.

1. "32.63n 117.14w" (1:18) more like a dramatic intro to a radio theatre play.

2. "Leaving It Behind" (4:27) computer rhythm track of pops and clicks with guitars and vocals for the first two minutes before the drums and full band join in. Driving and insistent and typical of the band, though a bit more hard and heavy than recent songs. Good song. (8/10)

3. "Endless Ways" (5:49) A sensitive piano-based song featuring the incredible vocal talents of Lee Douglas from start to finish, this is just one awesomely beautiful song--one of the best songs I've heard all year. In true Post Rock fashion, it builds and crescendos, yet it never loses its heart-wrenching, romantic spirit--thanks to the stupendous performance and presentation of Douglas's vocal. Plus, I adore its chosen message. "The dream I created." Say no more. (10/10)

4. "The Optimist" (5:37) opens as if a reprise of the previous song, but then one of the Cavanaugh brothers's voices enters to tell you differently. (Lee does pop up in the background at the end of the first and second minutes.) It does take over two minutes until the full band joins in, but that's about my only complaint to this beautiful song. I love it when the band use orchestral support (as in the album Falling Deeper--my favorite album they've ever done) and the fact that the final two minutes is a Post Rock instrumental, buildup, crescendo, and fade. (9/10)

5. "San Francisco" (4:59) again there is a tremendous familiarity to the piano opening of this song--like I've already heard it in a variation on this very same album--but then, as it plays out as an instrumental, we are treated to the buildup coming from--surprise--the computerized rhythms (and, later, synthesizers). It could almost qualify as a house/rave song! Still, a very satisfying, engaging song, start to finish. (9.5/10)

6. "Springfield" (5:49) a true Post Rock song with Lee Douglas's haunting background repetitions of "How did I get here?" and "I don't belong here" the most memorable parts. (8.5/10)

7. "Ghosts" (4:17) another stunning piano-based song featuring Lee Douglas on lead vocals. I like the drum play here very much. (9/10)

8. "Can't Let Go" (5:00) a true rock song--a good one! (8.5/10)

9. "Close Your Eyes" (3:39) a true jazz torch song. Very much like a sensitive, masterful Kate BUSH piano-based song from her last 50 Words for Snow album. Cool! (9/10)

10. "Wildfires" (5:40) could be an ULVER song (whichmakes sense since the Cavanaugh brothers have been working with Garm and crew a lot over the past few years)! Awesome and powerful! Amazing crescendo! (9.5/10)

11. "Back To The Start" (11:41) a great, sensitive 7-minute prog song (' la STEVEN WILSON) followed by four minutes of emptiness and then four minutes of vacuous family stuff that does not belong on the album. Too bad! (9/10)

A minor masterpiece of progressive rock music. I like their sound, love the songs, and, after five months with the album, I'm finally convinced that this one is ready for the elevated status.

I've been a pretty huge fan of this band over the years so I was really pumped when I heard they were doing an album that was to close the chapter on "A Fine Day To Exit" from 2001. This isn't a new idea but one that is intriguing to say the least. But why bother? Well back in 2001 the critics were all over this band for the apparent positive spin on suicide based on that album cover showing a car parked on the beach with a man's clothes and shoes cast on the beach with him nowhere to be seen. In the car we see notes including one that has "A Fine Day To Exit" on it, plus there's beer cans, a liquor bottle, a cell phone with "missed call" on it, a bottle of pills and a gun. Also a picture of him, his wife and son. The man was on a mission to end his life but the question is why? And did he? Well there wouldn't be a part two if he had drowned in the water which I think is something you would know if you listened to the ending of that album. I stated in my review at the time that he was still alive based on that final track.

So maybe this is an answer to the critics but I also feel it's closure to an album that had more questions than answers. Having said that they really keep things close to the vest as to why he was going to end his life leaving a lot of hints on this record in the process. They seemed pretty intent on putting a positive spin on this one and hence on "A Fine Day To Exit" even with the title of this record. This feels like they're changing the perceived negativity that many had for "A Fine Day To Exit". Also they even have their name on this album spelled differently as ANA_THEMA. I would describe the music and lyrics as meaningful and emotional. More electronics than ever and the sound is fairly stripped down with plenty of piano at times. Travis Smith takes care of the art work once again.

So what's this all about? Well I can't be sure but based on a couple of things I think he may have lost his son which was the reason for the suicidal attitude. Just a hunch based on the album cover of "A Fine Day To Exit" which shows the face of a boy in that car parked on the beach. On the back cover of the same album the father is shown driving at night and seeing this boy on the road. Clearly a ghost and "The Optimist" has a song called "Ghosts" but perhaps the biggest detail is the final moments of this album where our subject pulls up to a house knocks on the door and as it opens there's a pause and then he says "How are you?"(he's back) then minutes of silence before we hear our subject years later I believe playing with his new baby son as birds chirp. He's so happy here unlike the recent past. The Optimist indeed.

"32.63N 117.14W" is the exact coordinates of Silver Strand Beach in San Diego California where our story takes place. Love the connection between the two albums as the seemingly never ending waves that ended "A Fine Day To Exit" start us off here as we hear our subject breathing very heavily as he gets back into his car and starts it up. Then he starts to find a radio station. It ends with electronic beats and this blends into "Leaving It Behind" a top three track for me. I really like the guitar that joins the beats as male vocals also join in. A fuller sound 1 1/2 minutes in and it's even fuller before 2 1/2 minutes as they rip it up here. Nice. Back to the beats and atmosphere before 3 minutes.

"Endless Ways" is where we hear the wondrous vocals of Lee Douglas. She joins the piano that opens the song then beats and strings are added before it kicks in to a more powerful sound a minute later. His cell phone can be heard ringing(poor wife). "The Optimist" starts with piano as male vocals join in. Lee comes in as well giving us a rare listen to ANATHEMA having male and female vocals working together. Strings too then we get a full sound after 2 minutes. A calm with strings before 3 minutes then it builds to a full instrumental sound as Lee then offers up some passionate vocal melodies. A calm after 5 minutes ends it.

"San Francisco" is maybe where our subject went eventually after not going through with the suicide. This is a fast paced instrumental as we get piano and electronic beats at first and there's more depth of sound before 3 1/2 minutes. A train can be heard to end it. "Springfield" is my favourite song on here. Relaxed guitar to start and it's sparse. Piano too along with atmosphere then drums. Lee comes in singing this line over and over "How did I get here, I don't belong here". Love the Post-Rock guitars that absolutely light up the soundscape. So much emotion here. Whispered male words with sirens in the background ends it.

"Ghosts" is spacey before Lee along with piano and drums take over. Her voice sounds so beautiful here after a minute. Lots of atmosphere too. "Can't Let Go" is a top three for me. Some energy here with busy drumming, guitar and male vocals. The music ends and then you can hear someone walking, opening and closing a door then turning on the radio. "Close Your Eyes" opens with relaxed piano in atmosphere as Lee comes in singing slowly. Some guest trombone before 2 1/2 minutes with a beat as the vocals step aside briefly. "Wild Fires" is something California knows all too well. Piano as male vocals come and go. Electronic beats after 2 minutes then it kicks in heavily before 3 1/2 minutes. It settles down before 5 minutes and waves can be heard as it blends into "Back To The Start" the almost 12 minute closer.

There are minutes of silence here which are important to the story. Acoustic guitar joins the waves then reserved male vocals. A fuller sound before 1 1/2 minutes minus the waves. Orchestral sounds after 4 minutes as the vocals stop. They're back after 5 minutes. The music fades away after 7 minutes as we hear a knock at a door and as it opens a pause before he says "How are you?" After minutes of silence which I believe represent years we get acoustic guitar along with birds chirping and the sound of a baby boy talking with his dad. Our subject is so happy to be with his new son. The optimist.

I'm probably way off here with my thoughts on what the two albums are all about but I have to say the concept adds to my rating here. The music while having many incredible moments needed that extra bump from the lyrics to be a 4 star album which I believe it is. I also know like Drew mentions in his review that months with this could bump it up even higher. Man has this band changed it's stripes over the years.

All of a sudden, brave creators from Liverpool decide to go back to their ideological roots, and not just anywhere, but straight to the fan-controversial A Fine Day to Exit, and decide to continue the story of the lyrical hero who eventually (spoiler!) changed his mind to drown in the ocean near the beach in San Diego, whose coordinates gave the name to intro of the Optimist. To be honest, I find this approach a little strange, because for AFDtE, as for me, it would be good to remain exactly as it was conceived by the "anathemists" themselves, unsaid, with an open ending, giving the listener the right to choose the fate of the main character. Besides, isn't a return to the past, a rollback - not a betrayal of their own principles, dogmas for the band itself, even if only in lyrical terms?

And to hell with the concept itself, with the lyrical component, although, of course, there are hardly more lines here than in the conceptual predecessor. Let's turn to the musical component. What have the eternal prophets presented to us on a saucer, who are fit to create their own religion and anathematize every parishioner for good, though known only to the group, purposes? And then out of my mouth comes a desperate and hopeless: "Eh, how come?". First, the "electronic" ending of the last album did not receive proper development. Although I admit initially that this is all subjective by and large, but still Leaving It Behind and instrumental San Francisco look much weaker than Distant Satellites and Take Shelter. At the point of the route marked by the city in the style of disco, the band so generally sounded almost like the eternally despised Coldplay, with whom the band was sometimes compared in the context of recent albums, although even a hedgehog can understand that Anathema wrote songs many times better. Here, the group took a serious step back.

As for the classic songs, the group again, for the fourth time in a row, writes the same thing, trying to cross out the logical ending in the form of the title song for the group from the same Distant Satellites, with the difference that the melodies have become weaker and more nondescript. I don't know what the situation is, whether Danny is in a state of mind, which is about the time of recording the album, caught another mental problems, or in the long course of recording the album itself. A sense of deja vu is present even among the songs themselves, when Endless Ways and The Optimist begin almost identically, despite the fact that they follow each other.

It's funny, but at times the Optimist still does not disappoint, but pleasantly surprises. Post-rock song Springfield is really beautiful with its appropriate cold beauty (perhaps the best song on the album), Ghosts and Wildfires adequately accumulate a mixture of the classic sound of Anathema and subtle inclusions of electronics, and Close Your Eyes along with You're Not Alone from the last album can rightfully be considered as the most unusual song of the group. Beautiful and elegant dark jazz, which would like more timekeeping.

At the same time, I have no questions about the technical side of the execution. Everything is as always good and verified. The only thing that bothers me (and the band lives, unfortunately, confirm this) is that Vinnie has started to give up on his vocals. Lee Douglas, on the other hand, remains at her old, very high level, and this time there's a hell of a lot of her on the album itself. Yes, I am certainly happy to hear her wonderful, feminine voice, but in comparison with past albums, she was somehow indecently given a lot of solo numbers. An attempt to equalize the rights of vocalists in order to bend under the current social trends? In fact, it's a consequence, as I said, of Vinnie's declining vocal range.

If Anathema were not in double demand as post-progressive rock prophets and undisputed masters of their craft, it would be possible to give up on this under-sequel of A Fine Day to Exit, because it really does not deserve the level of such a beautiful and diverse album, just as it does not deserve the level of its predecessors, which are among the best albums of Anathema. Alas, the reality is that with this album, my favorite English people from Merseyside have definitely failed. As if not to be Optimistic about the controversial end of the history of the most beautiful band, as it was with Porcupine Tree or Isis, and everything is going to this, given that the band went on indefinite leave, and Danny announced a new solo album and a project called Weather Systems, declared as "a continuation of the legacy of the previous group".