Anathema @ Wolverhampton Slade Rooms, 16th February 2011

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With only one listen to Anathema‘s current offering, We’re Here Because We Are, I arrived at Wolverhampton’s Slade Rooms almost oblivious of what to expect from the Liverpudlian group.

With the aforementioned album taking Classic Rock’s Prog album of 2010 I should have expected a quality set and I wasn’t disappointed.

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From the opening track ‘Deep’ the band could do no wrong, frontman Vincent Kavanaugh’s voice was at times haunting but so powerful and was perfectly complimented by brother Danny. Today’s Anathema sound is far removed from the early days of the bands metal leaning, a lush atmospheric sound that almost sucks you in and holds your full attention for every note. Back to back songs from A Fine Day To Exit -Pressure and Release- persuade the Wolverhampton crowd to raise their arms, we could be in a 10,000 seater stadium.

Lee Douglas’ voice on One Last Goodbye brought a different angle to the set, good female backing vocals totally work with this genre of music and Douglas’ voice was flawless for the time she was on the stage, this reviewers’s opinion thinks her voice would work on the whole set.

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Flying ended the set far too soon for the enthusiastic crowd baying for more and only happy not to disappoint, the band didn’t even leave the stage and when you have the likes of ‘A natural disaster’ and ‘Fragile Dreams’ to come back with, it shows the abundance of musical talent Anathema have.

If the likes of Coldplay,Radiohead and the like are you thing, Anathema are will blow you away, great songs, great musicians, presence that could easily command major venues.

Intimately anthemic…and I like it!

Review & Photos – Andy Whitehouse

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1 thought on “Anathema @ Wolverhampton Slade Rooms, 16th February 2011

  1. Hey, nice review. I attended the concert as well! 🙂
    What kind of a camera did you use for the photos and what is the resolution?
    I’m writing a review of this concert for my student magazine on my journalism course and I’d need a hi-res image for the magazine. I was wondering if it’s a hi-res one and you wouldn’t mind, could I use the first picture on this review? 🙂

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