A FINE DAY TO EXIT

This"Experimental/Post Metal" category doesn't speak to me at all. What does it mean anyway???

"Anathema" has brought me lots of different feelings throughout their career: from totally adverse (their first two albums and a couple of EP as well) to great pleasure with "Eternity" and "Alternative 4". I should say that the evolution was superb and the result great.

Their previous album ("Judgement") was not top notch but still good. I would rank this album in the same division. There are few outrageous songs featured on "A Fine Day To Exit". It is more of a combo of decent numbers after all. I really wouldn't recommend this one.

If you want to discover the band from its best angle, both "Eternity" and "Alternative 4" as I have mentioned before should be your entry. This one is just a collection of desperate and uniform songs.

Decent vocal harmonies like during "Underworld" are quite pleasant but I can't really succumb to their "Porcupine Tree" style of music while they perform "Barriers". I am not saying that this song is not a good one, but hell! More personality would have been welcome.

The upbeat and punkish "Panic" is one of my fave at this time of the album: a superb beat, sweet vocals, incredible pace and great drumming job. This combo of positive elements is just great: a fantastic song it is. The shortest but the best so far.

But what about the longest one? An over eighteen minute epic with lots of "waves" sounds which from another generation and a middle part filled with spoken words which is rather dull. I have been listening to true and great epic songs for almost forty years. This one is just below average.

Anyway: to summarize my feel, I can't rate this album with more than three stars. It lacks of innovative ideas and sounds too much as a PT album. Three stars still because it is a good album, but no more.