Anathema - A Moment In Time
Performance
Production
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Anathema - A Moment In Time
Performance
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Anathema followed a similar musical progression of another band whose concert DVD I recently reviewed on this site, named Tiamat. Both bands made a name for themselves on the death metal scene early on, with Anathema leaning more towards the even murkier doom metal side of the tracks. These styles mostly rely on morbid, pain-obsessed lyrics, heavy, plodding riffs, complex song structures, and hell inspired growling vocals. Both bands eventually saw the light, so to speak, and over the course of a few albums, radically changed their sound with a more atmospheric, goth-rock approach. Where Tiamat stuck with the same lead vocalist throughout the transition, he just completely changed his vocal style, Anathema got themselves a new vocalist, when guitarist Vincent Cavanagh took over for departing growler Darren White, and radically transformed the band's sound. A Moment In Time features Anathema's performance at the Metalmania Festival, in Spodek, Katowice, Poland, on March 4th, 2006. This performance was brilliantly captured by Poland's Metal Mind Productions, who also did an excellent job on the recent Tiamat concert DVD. The show begins unconventionally, with the staged bathed in a dark blue hue, as two giant video screens display scenes of thick, rolling clouds, and the accompanying Bacchus String Quartet perform a beautiful classical interlude, as members of the band slowly take their positions on the stage. This goes on for about three minutes before keyboardist Les Smith transitions into the haunting piano ballad "Shroud Of False", which ends a minute later in a power chord drenched crescendo that segues perfectly into the first full song of the night, "Fragile Dreams". This stuff sounds fantastic, and certainly confirms that Anathema have outgrown almost all traces of death metal in their sound. "Fragile Dreams", from 1998's Alternative 4 album, is an alternative-meets-progressive rock anthem which has elements of both Radiohead and Queensryche. The next couple of songs, "Balance" and "Closer", are taken from the band's latest album, 2004's A Natural Disaster. These guys are overdue for a new album, and if the stunning new song "Everything", which is available on the band's website, is any indication, it is going to be a good one. "Closer" features a cool middle section with Vincent singing through a vocoder as the pulsing keyboards and percussion create an almost hypnotic aura. The setlist was not exactly the best career retrospective, as 9 of the 13 original songs performed were taken from either the Alternative 4 or A Natural Disaster albums, but you certainly get most of their best material. One of the highlights of the show was the slow-burning, bluesy title track from A Natural Disaster, which featured the stunning vocals of Anathema's resident female contributor Lee Douglas. The end of the set finally takes you back a few years with "Angelica", a Celtic flavored epic from the1996 album Eternity, which debuted Vincent Cavanagh as new lead vocalist, and set the band down the path to Pink Floydsville. To make their influences even more obvious, they closed out the show with an excellent rendition of their fellow countrymen's "Comfortably Numb". Although it is a fairly faithful cover of this classic, Vincent's unique Thom Yorke meets Jeff Buckley vocal delivery gives it a distinct Anathema stamp. The overall production values of this DVD are excellent. The widescreen video presentation was sharp and colorful, and captured Anathema's dynamic light show flawlessly. Audio was presented in both Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and stereo. The surround mix was enveloping, but sounded as if you were listening from the back of the arena instead of the middle, which created a slight lack of detail and instrument separation. The guitars were buried in the mix a little more than I prefer, but this was a satisfying mix overall. The camera work was very professionally done, providing some great long shots of the entire stage, as well as some excellent camera angles which perfectly captured the mood of the show. The extra features include an interview with Danny Cavanagh and Les Smith, a photo gallery, website links, and wallpapers. The highlight, however, is a four song set culled from Anathema's 2004 Live At Krzemionki performance, which features two killer tracks from the band's first two albums, as well as a inspired cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross". With this excellent DVD, Anathema have made a new fan out of me. I look forward to hearing their new CD, but in the mean time I'll be giving this one a few more spins. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - July 2006 |
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Set List |
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Running Times: 108 Minutes
(concert) |
DVD Release Date - July 2006 |