It’s been five long years since Anathema graced us with an album. Five long years since the magnificent A Natural Disaster that sealed the deal for the bands movement away from all things metal. After that though, there’s just been the steady increase in anticipation levels among fans of the band for the new album. While it has been made public that the album will be called Horizons and Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson will be producing, a release date and a label to release the music is still not known.

So in the meantime almost like a piece of meat thrown at their rabid fan base comes Hindsight. A collection of songs previously released on various albums but now re-worked into a largely acoustic framework. The album opens with Fragile Dreams and the song has been transformed into a keyboard led gently melancholic refrain. It’s a stunning re-working of one the bands more popular songs and when the cello comes in instead of that opening guitar line you just know that this compilation is going to be a bit special. Leave No Trace from 2001s A Fine Day to Exit has a folk feel to it while the original version’s spacey feel is completely missing on this one. Inner Silence sounds even more morose and brooding than the original and seems to be the result of Danny Cavanagh’s time spent in Antimatter.

The centerpiece of the album though is the magnificent re-working of A Natural Disaster. The title song taken from the bands most recent album is essentially the same. It’s the subtle changes like the cello coming in for the original bass guitar and an absolutely stunning vocal performance from Lee Douglas really taking this song to a whole new level. Flying also from A Natural Disaster is another terrific song and while the original was a definite highpoint of that album, this re-working is absolutely essential stuff.

The album ends with Unchained (Tales of the Unexpected) which is another melancholic and brooding song that’s held together by a gentle acoustic guitar and some vaguely ominous sounding cello and keyboards parts. Terrific ending to the album and is good reason to check out Hindsight on its own. I suppose the only real downside to this collection is the exclusion of Forgotten Hopes and also the fact that this only focuses on material from Eternity onwards.

I think most fans of the band are going to love Hindsight. The songs are all essentially the same but have been tweaked just enough to give things a fresh perspective. I can’t wait for the new album to come out but till then, Hindsight will do very well.



Label - Kscope
Year of Release - 2008