With this reworking of material from their earliest days, Anathema have proved themselves to be masters of creating atmospheric music once again. The difference this time around is that 'Falling Deeper' is more of a soundtrack than an album. This is music that lingers, builds and fades with immaculate beauty and delightful simplicity.
Whilst it is a long time since Anathema could really be called a metal band that doesn’t take away from how stunning their transformation has been. On 'Falling Deeper', the band rely upon acoustic guitar and piano to carry the melodies whilst achingly exquisite strings and a variety of ambient sounds fill out the compositions to create something gorgeously stripped back and yet resoundingly complete. Only at the conclusion of closer 'Sunset of Age' does a sumptuous piece of electric guitar break into anything approaching rock music. Incredibly for a band that released, with last year’s 'We’re Here because we’re Here', one of the finest British rock albums for a decade this isn’t a rock album at all. This is more like classical music than anything else and is all the better for it. You see this has a band that, after twenty years in existence has decided that for them there are no boundaries and this is proof of such a decision. There is no need to brand this a brave move. It is carried off with far too much comfort for the use of such a term.
Listening back to some of these songs in their original form and then returning again to 'Falling Deeper', it is striking how the band has surpassed their earlier work in a fashion so different and yet, at the same time, unerringly similar. The fragile doom and despair of these early Anathema songs retain their searing emotion in their new form but the new instrumentation carries an air of hope that now seems set to become Anathema’s trademark. This is an immaculate work from a band that truly has become one of the very finest around. There is nothing more to say.
'Falling Deeper' is out now on K-Scope records. Anathema play K-Scope’s show at the Union Chapel in Islington on the 30th September.
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Listening back to some of these songs in their original form and then returning again to 'Falling Deeper', it is striking how the band has surpassed their earlier work in a fashion so different and yet, at the same time, unerringly similar. The fragile doom and despair of these early Anathema songs retain their searing emotion in their new form but the new instrumentation carries an air of hope that now seems set to become Anathema’s trademark. This is an immaculate work from a band that truly has become one of the very finest around. There is nothing more to say. 
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