WE'RE HERE BECAUSE WE'RE HERE

I was a bit excited about this album, seeing it so high on the Top 2010 Albums list, especially since I had never heard anything by Anathema before. Because I'm new to Anathema, I can't judge this album's quality relative to the rest of their discography, but judging solely based on it's musical qualities, I can honestly say that I was disappointed.

The overall sound of the album is very atmospheric and dreamy, and while I can tolerate this to some extent, the fact that this is the predominant texture for the entire album is not in its favor. Even worse, the harmonies are some of the least interesting and most predictable of any prog album I've listened to. Very few of the melodies use more than three or four notes, and almost all consist entirely of predictably chosen long notes that make the vocalist very boring to listen to despite his great voice. All the tempos are pretty slow; some are excruciatingly so.

As you can tell, I think this album lacks any hint of variety. I won't go into the tracks in detail as most of them are the same. There are a few neat parts: the guitar riff starting about halfway through "A Simple Mistake" caught my ear, and the accompaniment figure in "Everything" was a nice break, but the guy talking in "Presence" was pretty annoying. The production quality is great, and sounds a lot like Porcupine Tree (as expected since it was mixed by Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree's lead man and producer). But unless you enjoy listening to an hour of slow atmospheric rock soundscapes, this album is not for you.

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