November 3, 2003 - A Natural Disaster

Six days after my last release and two years since "A Fine Day To Exit", Anathema released their seventh album "A Natural Disaster" on November 3, 2003. Bassist Dave Pybus is no longer with the band and he is replaced by Jamie Cavanagh, the younger brother of Daniel and twin brother of Vincent Cavanagh! Who knew there was another one! Now with three Cavanagh brothers, Anathema continue the style of light/alternative/progressive rock they've had for the past couple albums. Let's check out the latest!

The album kicks off with "Harmonium" and Les Smith and Danny Cavanagh both play some different synths that drone on for a quietly epic riff. Vincent adds some light guitar and sings a nice soft verse overtop and this dreaminess continues for almost three minutes until some heavier guitars nicely kick in. Vincent and Danny are both playing some louder, more headbanging stuff as Vincent continues to hold lots of long notes overtop. This heavier part is decent, but it's a largely unexciting way to open the album. Up next is "Balance" and it starts with a space-y and cool piano riff. John Douglas adds a cool little drum best and Vincent sings in a nice high voice as they dreamily add more keyboards and guitar to the mix. Once again, just before three minutes in, some heavy guitar finally joins the fray as Vincent takes over with a pretty cool new riff. They heavily and nicely jam out the final minute and it seems like we're heading right into the next track, only for it to stop very suddenly. Track 3 is "Closer" and it's driven by a pretty epic and cool keyboard riff as Danny seems to have written most of the songs with the keyboards at the forefront (at least so far). Vincent sings into a vocoder for a robotic, Frampton-esque voice on this song and it fits the mood decently but I'm not a big fan of it for the whole song. It's the same riff for the whole six-plus minutes and eventually some guitar joins in to make things a little better, but this song is a little too repetitive with not enough happening. The next track is "Are You There?" and it has some very space-y and dreamy keyboards leading the way and Danny sings lead vocals on this song as well. He has a decent high voice as he sings softly overtop the trippy, droning soundscape. I think Vincent is a better singer, but Danny's voice does fit this mood nicely even though it's not the most exciting riff to last for almost five minutes. Track 5 is "Childhood Dream" and we hear the sound of some kids playing while a light acoustic guitar riff takes the lead. This sums up this short two minute song and it's nothing special at all. Up next is "Pulled Under At 2000 Metres A Second" and Jamie starts us off with a solid bass riff while Smith plays some more droning keyboards in the background. Vincent is back on vocals as he sings a typical verse overtop and slowly and epicly some loud guitar joins the mix until Vincent lets out adecent scream of the name of the song as they segue into a heavier version of the same riff! This transition was excellent and my head is banging along to this solid new riff with some cool guitar and bass. Even though there's another quiet part with whispering, they finish with a final loud riff and this is still probably my favourite song on the album. Track 7 is the title track "A Natural Disaster" and once again John's sister Lee Douglas does guest vocals. A slow but cool guitar riff leads the way with some more epic keyboards in the background and when Lee comes in to sing she sounds pretty epic and good I think! Her high voice sounds great with this trippy music and once the drums and bass complete the riff things sound psychedelic and pretty cool! It's almost psychedelic blues and Lee's voice sounds good in the repeating chorus as well as things are surprisingly pretty catchy! At the end the music completely dies out and Vincent and Danny both join in so we have three singers at once as they slowly fade to an epic finish of this unique and well done song. The next track is "Flying" and it starts with some trippy reverse keyboards before Vincent comes in to sing a soft but decently epic verse. Some soft guitar joins to fit the mood and Vincent holds some long, epic notes in the chorus as he sings loudly overtop the quiet music. The next round is more involved with the rhythm section and rhythm guitar completing the main riff and Vincent continues to lead the way. The latter half of this six minute song has a slow, building riff with some decently epic guitar, and eventually it reaches it's apex and collapsea like a soft, trippy waterfall until things eventually fade to a close. Track 9 is another one with Danny on lead vocals and it's called "Electricity" and Danny starts it all by himself as he plays a slow, soft piano riff and then sings a soft verse overtop. The first round is just Danny, then Vincent joins with some light guitar for the still quiet second round. It's not until the third round that the rest of the band finally joins in to complete this slow, slightly trippy main riff. They end it with just Danny quietly again and this was an okay, but very soft song. The final song on the album is by far the longest as just under eleven minutes and it's titled "Violence". It starts with another epic piano riff that is the backbone of the first couple minutes before the rhythm section loudly joins in and signals a cool shift to a louder riff. The guitars get louder and start to take over as Vincent and Danny are both on guitar and things continue to increase in volume until Douglas is just wailing it with some great fast drums! Around the five minute mark all this loudness just fades to Nothing and we're left with some cool soft piano and some trippy guitar as we space-ily drift through this next part. Some epic strings-like keyboards are added by Smith and they complement Danny's epic lead piano nicely. This whole eleven minute song turns out to be instrumental and most of it is this space-y, droning stuff at the end as it's easy to get lost in things as the epic piano continues and the trippy backdrop just keeps fluttering along.

That is the end of "A Natural Disaster" and I thought it was an alright album, but definitely not a great one, similar to their previous album "A Fine Day To Exit". Anathema lean even more into their lighter side on this latest effort so I think it's a new bottom rung on the ladder for me. The heavier parts were good, but there was too much lighter stuff and not enough interesting stuff going on. This is the Last we'll hear from Anathema for a while, but they will return!