A Penny for Your Songs (10) - A Sort of Life Companion

Week 10

Hey guys, hope you're having a wonderful weekend. The weather here is getting colder, and I won't hide that it annoys me as hell. But hey, I'm going to spend the rest of my Sunday in the warmth of my home, probably binge-watching something, so it's all right. I know, so mundane.

Anyway, welcome back to A Penny For Your Thoughts. This is a place for sharing meaningful music from my (or yours, if you wish) past and\or present. Sometimes the songs will be somewhat emotional and related to experiences, some other times they will just be songs and artists I like for no reason at all. Today, my choice of music will lean heavily on the former aspect.

There are bands who make an effort to sound exactly the same for the whole duration of their career. It's a safe choice, if you manage to build a solid fanbase who expects a certain kind of album from you. But then there are other bands, who just like to evolve, to grow out of their shadows and progress into something else, unafraid of speaking their minds and their hearts. Sometimes, we are lucky enough to cross a band like that at an early stage in our lives, and therefore to be able to grow together, like life companions of sorts. That has been the case, for me, with the band that I'm going to introduce to you today.

Are we just a moment in time?

Back when I still had to grow a beard, I went through a very confused phase of life. Adolescence, that time in life when we feel scared, alone, empty. But also angry, strong, idealistic, indestructible. Peaks of happiness and periods of unjustified sadness that take turns disorienting us further. We tend to feel a lot of things in those years, but mainly we strive to find something that makes sense. While going through all of that turbulence, someone in my online group of friends mentioned a British band called Anathema. I listened to Alternative 4 (1998) and it stuck with me. It was a collection of songs about loss of love, emptiness, regrets. I remember listening to it hundreds of times. I felt exactly like that. Those songs stayed with me forever, sometimes gaining new meanings as we went on together.

The tag read depressive rock. But that was not the first iteration of Anathema. Founded by the Cavanagh brothers, Danny, Vincent and Jamie, they started off as a purely death\doom band. I have to admit, even though I liked the genre, I could never really see them as a metal band, and their earlier albums, as good as they were, were ultimately forgettable to me. A lot of fans still listen to them, some still try to ask for those songs during live concerts. But they've been very clear about that phase of their career: it ended more than 20 years ago, they changed, and that's irreversible.

I could say a lot about their following depressive rock phase, which is by far my favorite. Knowing me, did you have any doubt about it? :)
I could dissect every album they made: most of my favorites are there, somewhere. I could confess how much I loved the significant input of their then bass-player, Duncan Patterson, a man that I consider a genius and that after Alternative 4 moved on to other projects, which at some point are bound to appear on these pages. But I believe the best way to describe that period is through a song: specifically, I chose Lost Control, from Alternative 4. There's an existential element in this song, echoed by the choice of sound, that is somehow still anchored to their Doom origins; there's an almost gothic quality to the voice and the violin, reminding me of certain passages by their compatriots My Dying Bride.

After Alternative 4 and with the departure of the aforementioned Duncan Patterson, their music shifted towards their most spacious, dreamy, experimental side; the following albums still had a very sad, very dark atmosphere, but their music was warmer, more "complete", in a way. The next song I'm going to share with you is taken from A Natural Disaster (2003) and it's called Flying. It's a fan favorite, and definitely one of mine too. I'm going to post the live version filmed in Plovdiv in 2012, because I believe it's their best rendition of this song, with an extended guitar part (and the audience participating after the end of the song).

After some time, something must have changed in their lives, in their way of seeing reality. Maybe forgetting about the pessimism is just a simple side effect of growing up. I don't know. I know it was for me, in a way. At any rate, it might be argued that their evolution reached its maturity with an album called We're Here Because We're Here (2010). Sure, Weather Systems is wildly more popular and refined, but WHBWH made a statement that would remain true for the rest of their career: enough with the depression, already. Their songs became more open to the possibility of a change, to the positive aspects of life. Alternative 4 began with the words "We're just a moment in time"; in A Simple Mistake they proudly contradict their old views with the exact opposite line: "We're not a moment in time".

The last song I'm going to post today has a very special meaning for me. It's called Dreaming Light and I used to listen to it at a stage of my life where I felt like everything was changing for the best, and, in an absolute way, I was experiencing the deepest joy that I've ever experienced. But you know what they say, the higher you climb, the harder you fall, and after a few months in this blissful state I found myself with empty hands on all fronts. For a long time this has been a very difficult song for me to listen, because it reminded myself of all I had lost. In some aspects, it still is. But as time heals all wounds, I was able to listen to it again, eventually.

As far as meaningful music goes, Anathema is definitely there in my personal top 10. I feel like my selection of songs does a good job to summarize their evolution, but it's not even close to be a comprehensive list when it comes to what I love about them. I feel like, as for many artists in my previous posts, at some point I will get back to them.

I had a bonus song lined up for today, but I think I'll keep it for the next time. I took up enough of your time already!

So what did you think of Anathema? Is there any artist in your life that grew up and evolved along with you and your own experiences? How about happy, positive songs that make you feel, for some reason, especially sad or nostalgic? Share away!

And have a good week!