FEAR OF A UNIQUE IDENTITY

It took Mick Moss a while to get back to writing and recording music for his project Antimatter after the band's previous 2007 album, the terrific Leaving Eden. It was only five years later that the new full-length, Fear of a Unique Identity, was ready. Moss changed a few things for the new album. He purposely took some distance from writing personal, emotionally wrought lyrics like he had done for Antimatter's previous albums, and he instead concentrated on social issues (including homologation, toxic masculinity, group think). He also made changes to the band's line-up, starting new collaborations with musicians he had not worked with before (Colin Fromont on drums, David Hall on violin, Vic Anselmo on vocals). Moss himself took charge of all guitars, bass and keyboards, also marking a departure from previous records where bass and guitar duties were shared with other musicians.

In terms of sound, Fear of a Unique Identity combines the styles Moss had already explored on previous Antimatter's albums. Melancholy acoustic singer-songwriter pieces in the style of Antimatter's third LP Planetary Confinement are juxtaposed to the kind of dark rock tunes that the band had showcased on Leaving Eden, while hints of moody electronica hark back to Antimatter's beginnings (Saviour, Lights Out). The songs are more heavily textured than on previous records, with guitars, synths, violins and programming frequently running in parallel throughout a song. This makes the album feel fuller and more "electric" compared to other Antimatter's LPs, slightly losing however the strong ebb and flow of dynamics that had been a hallmark for the band up to this point.

Despite keeping a focus on verse-chorus structures, on Fear of a Unique Identity Moss also experiments with somewhat longer form compositions, with instrumental detours and bridges occupying a conspicuous part of the album's duration. Most tracks thus exceed the 5-minute mark, and some even approach prog-epic proportions, such as the 6 minutes of "Paranova" or the 8 minutes of "Firewalking". Here, however, likes one of the major pitfalls of the record: there are not sufficiently interesting musical developments happening in these tracks to justify their elongated form. The instrumental passages do little more than repeat endlessly the main riffs or motifs. The bridges pass by anonymously, and even the choruses fail to leave a strong impression, lacking those hooks that Moss had instead dispensed in abundance in his previous songs.

The production by Al Groves is another weak point. Everything on this album sounds slightly muddy and muffled, almost as if every color and brightness had been suck out of it, to render it grey and lifeless. Maybe that was intentional, as it kinda fits the record's lyrical theme. But it certainly isn't a great move, because it adds to the sense of dreariness and dullness that the songs' excessive duration already induces. As a result, all tracks tend to blur into one another, making the whole listening experience rather tiresome, as the clock watching starts well before the album reaches its midway.

Ultimately, there are only a handful of tracks that I really like and return to on this record. These are the shorter, acoustic tunes ("Here Come the Men", "A Place in the Sun") as well as the single "Uniformed & Black", which packs a good punch and a catchy refrain. The rest of the songs somewhat miss that spark, energy and catchiness that had made so many of Moss' previous songs such brilliant earworms. As a result, I consider this album the weakest Antimatter's full-length released to date.