Universal (Anathema, 2010)

 Arguably one of my favourite tracks by Anathema, "Universal" has a very atmospheric mood, a beautiful musical theme, a dreaming guitar, some splendid keyboards and even a shoegaze-like section. No doubt, when it comes to slow paced and majestic sounds this Liverpool band is among the best you can find over there. Not only they know how to write and perform good music, but they also have sort of a Mida's touch and they totally deserve their success. 

"We're Here..." was Anathema's eighth studio album

Take this track (from "We're Here Because We're Here" album), for example: it flows away like springy water and cleverly skips redunancy thanks to a series of slight and effective changes, consistent and surprising at the same time. Building up a song is never easy, but Anathema know how to handle this and how to mix prog rock and mainstreap pop. Brilliant!

Dreaming Light (Anathema, 2010)

Anathema are a very well established band and their musical evolution from metal to atmospheric prog is universally known. I could have chosen more intricated and longer tracks to put here, but I'm fascinated by this plain and dreamy song. It comes from the album titled "We're Here Because We're Here" and features one of the best melodies Anathema found in their career, IMHO.

"We're Here Because We're Here" was th eight CD by Anathema.

Light is an important topic of the entire album, as the cover art proves very well and the video for this song is also based on alternating shadows and lights. Its arrangement highlights are the atmospheric, ethereal keyboards by Les Smith (leaving the band soon after this CD), the dreaming, Gilmour-esque guitar solo (thanks, Mr. Vincent Cavanagh!) and - last but not least - the clear, moving vocals by Lee Douglas. Six minutes of wonder.