Posted on: August 30, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Anathema – A Moment In Time / 2006 MVD / 120 Minutes / http://www.anathema.ws / http://www.mvdb2b.com / Reviewed 15 August 2006

When I saw that a band called Anathema was doing a DVD, I was expecting hard and brutal things to be hitting me from all sides. The DVD “A Moment In Time” starts out with a classical orchestra that play in the band during “Shroud of False”. One can barely hear it, but the arrangements during “Shroud of False” are something that just feel based in black metal. The gothic gloom of that track is not full borne out by the orchestra, but they do try their hardest. The band finally gets into their gloom-metal stride during the fourth minute of “Shroud of False”, and the vocal skills of the lead singer seem to tie together Dani Filth with Serj (System of a Down) to create something that is hard-hitting but ultimately compelling. More compelling has to be the guitar and drum work done during this track, which pick up speed until they are blasting at full speed towards the listener.

It may just be a cheesy hair metal song, but something that comes to my head during the instrumental section of “Shroud of False” is Hurricane’s 1989 somewhat self-titled hit. The fury that leads into “Fragile Dreams” slows down to allow for a synthesizer approximating a children’s choir to back up the charismatic lead singer of Anathema. The band knows how to move quickly between harder and lighter shades of metal, from something that could conceivably be on any metal or rock TV show to something that only their mothers could like. Anathema knows exactly what they are doing when it comes to creating amazing and catchy music. The band may be working in a rut for a minute or two during “Fragile Dreams”, but I’ll be damned if that rut is not some of the best times that individuals will ever have listening to metal. The band rides that rut until the ending of the track, and then kicks into “Balance” before much more time. Anathema is a band that I am sorry that I missed in the past.

They are perhaps the best pop-metal act out in the market, and should be on Headbanger’s Ball and all that so a wider swath of fans can find out exactly how impressive the band comes out with . There are eighteen live tracks on this disc, plus an interesting interview with the band that pushes the effective time of this DVD to something a little closer to 2 hours. Where acts like Metallica may be chided in the States for creating tracks that are “too light” to be effective representations of their band, Anathema is able to gracefully and smartly come up with tracks throughout this DVD that blend light and dark, heavy and light into something that will be equally compelling to anyone who listens. Anathema is an act that deserves to make it big, and their perfect performance eon this DVD should be perfect evidence to anyone who may doubt the act at this juncture.

Top Tracks: Balance, Empty

Rating: 8.0/10

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