Moving on to another EP:
Pentecost III (1995)
1. Kingdom
2. Mine Is Yours to Drown in (Ours is the New Tribe)
3. We, the Gods
4. Pentecost III
5. Memento Mori
Line-up:
Daniel Cavanagh — guitar
Vincent Cavanagh — guitar
John Douglas — drums
Duncan Patterson — bass guitar
Darren White — vocals
Anathema entered The Academy studios again in May 1994 to record their next EP,
Pentecost III. These sessions also spawned two improvised tracks, "Eternal Rise of the Sun" and "Nailed to the Cross", both of which can be found on the rare
We Are the Bible 7" and the reissue of
Serenades. The original edition of the EP also includes an acoustic piece called "Horses" along with "666" as hidden tracks. Interestingly enough, in
a newsletter from 1994 the title-track was called "The War with Rome Still Rages On". It also says the video for "Mine Is Yours" was filmed on Anglesey Island.
Pentecost III is doomy and heavy like the earlier recordings, but Darren White mostly speaks or shouts instead of growling, and there are some melodic vocals too. "We, the Gods" is also the first Anathema song to include a (co-)writing credit for Duncan Patterson, who would become a prolific songwriter on subsequent releases. Due to record label politics (a merging between Peaceville and Music for Nations), the EP didn't get released until a year after it had been recorded, and by that point White had been fired from the band. Danny and Duncan talked about the circumstances that led to them parting ways with him:
https://web.archive.org/web/19991002125133/https://www.dse.nl/inferno/issue5/anathema.html"It was all to do with a complete clash of ideas, in terms of lyrics, the vocals, and everything. Videos, basically his attitude towards the band was very different to ours, and we couldn't carry on with it anymore.
On the last album we gave him ten days to record some vocals, in the studio, and we didn't like any of the ones he'd done. In ten days he couldn't get any vocals down that we really liked, and we thought, this can not carry on. It's been a problem for about the last year, ever since 'Pentecost III', just before that was recorded, things started to change. All that I can say now is that Vincent [Cavanagh, ed] is an excellent singer, cos he really can sing notes as well, and he has better ideas for lyrics, his lyrics are less about... There are no 'mountains', 'valleys' or 'gods' anymore. It's more real..."
https://web.archive.org/web/20041216010435/https://www.rockbrigade.com.br/pages/artigos_english/anathema.htm"Basically he just got carried away with his role in the band. He started to see himself as this Jim Morrison type of character with the rest of us being backing musicians. We tried to resolve certain situations that kept arising for instance he booked the studio for one of the albums and only told us a week before we were due to go into record. Anyway, we tried to actually do the album that way with him. When we got into the studio all Darren had was all these poems and half sentences he was intending on using and that's when we knew enough was enough. Fortunately Vinnie is, as in hindsight we all now realise, a much better singer so Vinnie at the last minute agreed to do all the albums vocals. That became the basis for our second full length album, The Silent Enigma."
However, a few years later the guys resolved their differences with Darren and have been on good terms ever since, as seen earlier this year on the Resonance tour. Danny even once said that if Darren had learned to sing properly, he'd still be in the band.
Pentecost III is a fine EP and an important step in Anathema's evolution, but listening to it also makes it clear that the band wouldn't have had a future with Darren White on the microphone, as his non-growled delivery is quite monotonous. However, the music is definitely good - if you cut the last two tracks and trimmed the fat in the two epics, you'd get a brilliant release. The band was clearly maturing musically and the next album would be the peak of their death/doom sound. (full review:
https://echotester.blogspot.com/2015/07/anathema-discography-3-pentecost-iii.html)