Nice to see some love for
Hindsight - as I said in my post, it's not a pointless release!
Thanks for the posts ?...I've been reading your posts as I start each album. Terrific job!
Thanks!
Now we're finally getting to the era that should be familiar to most of you:
We're Here Because We're Here (2010)
1. Thin Air
2. Summernight Horizon
3. Dreaming Light
4. Everything
5. Angels Walk Among Us
6. Presence
7. A Simple Mistake
8. Get off, Get Out
9. Universal
10. Hindsight
Line-up:
Daniel Cavanagh — guitar, piano, keyboards, vocals
Jamie Cavanagh — bass guitar
Vincent Cavanagh — vocals, guitar
John Douglas — percussion, drums, keyboards, guitars
Lee Douglas — vocals
Les Smith — keyboards
Ville Valo — backing vocals on "Angels Walk Among Us"
Stan Ambrose — spoken word on "Presence"
Maren Svenning — narration on "Hindsight"
As mentioned in the write-up for Hindsight, several struggles kept Anathema from releasing a new album for many years. The seeds for WHBWH were sown in 2005, when the band released three songs - "
Everything", "
A Simple Mistake" and "
Angels Walk Among Us" (including "
Presence") - on a "pay what you want" basis. The first tracklist for the album was already announced in December 2006, when the working title was still
Everything:
https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/anathema-new-album-title-track-listing-revealed/01. Thin Air (Ann Further)
02. Bricks (working title)
03. Lightning Song
04. Sunlight
05. Get Off. Get Out. (working title)
06. Angels Walk Among Us
07. Everything
08. A Simple Mistake
09. Voodoo (working title)
10. No One Is Free (working title)
11. Paradigm Shift
12. Hindsight
However, the album went through several other working titles, such as
Paradigm Shift and
Horizons, and several songs were dropped when new ones came along. Some of these rejected numbers would eventually appear on the subsequent two albums.
The album finally saw the light of day in 2010, when Kscope released
We're Here Because We're Here. According to Danny, the band was happy with the work the label did for
Hindsight, and hence decided to continue working with them:
https://www.femmemetalwebzine.net/2012/06/10/interview-danny-cavanagh-anathema/Why did we choose KScope Records? Well, they are very good and they believe in us very much and they wanted it more than anybody else did. They were really keen to have our record, and they wanted it for many years. We saw that, with the work they did on “Hindsight”, they are actually quite good. They do things properly and they don’t spend a fortune. They don’t spend quite a lot of money wastefully. Our manager — we have a manager now — he recommends we take this and we did. We were not the kind of band at that time that could attract a much bigger label, so we went with that one. We are happy and I am happy that we did.
The album title was taken from a song sung in the Allied trenches of World War I. Vincent explained it as follows:
https://www.reflectionsofdarkness.com/artists-a-e-interviews-85/7682-anathema-june-2010It is a celebration of life in defiance of death, of triumph over adversity. Of brotherhood, sisterhood, of solidarity. It is a rallying-call. “Come on dear friends, to the barricades again! “ Ultimately it is about us. The members of this band. The brothers and sister that have stayed true to each other for all of our lives, for good or ill.
WHBWH was mixed by Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, whom the band had toured with in 2007. Ville Valo of the Finnish band HIM - who had also been supported by Anathema on tour back in 2006 - sings subtle backing vocals on "Angels Walk Among Us". Regarding his contribution, Vincent said:
https://www.heartagram.it/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1222:anathema-were-here-because-were-here&catid=65&Itemid=70We asked him “would you try to add something to the backing vocals, he agreed, very kindly wanted to retain the integrity of the lyric and the very personal nature of the lyric by just adding a kind of almost keyboard-like vocal effect in the background really...
And he was easy to work with because he just recorded it at home, you know, in his own home studio and he just gave us the files. “Ok guys” he said “ listen, you can do with it what you will. I just had fun doing it and I really enjoyed it, so...” You know, he didn’t ask anything for it. He’s just a great guy.
"Presence" includes a quote from
Stillness Speaks by Eckhard Tolle: "Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal…" It was recited by Stan Ambrose, who had been interviewed by Danny:
He is a very beautiful person, he’s a musician and a radio presenter. He was involved in counselling for a long time and he is a local activist. Just a gentleman who many people like… many people like this man. He is very humble, very kind and we became friends. We started to talk about spiritual things and the essence of life and these things. He’s always been interested in those things, interested in mediation and all that stuff. So I interviewed him actually in the Cathedral — in Liverpool Cathedral I interviewed him – and he began talking about a book by Eckhart Tolle, who is a spiritual writer, a very successful spiritual writer whose message of stillness is making an impact around the world. Stan is a person who is very much interested in these things and very sincere. When he spoke to me about this, he almost had a tear in his eye. I made the interview with him, and it just seemed to fit with the song, “Presence”. Also, the fact is that he is talking a little bit about the possibility of life beyond death and I know that he was thinking about that. And that relates directly to “Angels Walk Among Us”, which is also asking that question.
Musically,
WHBWH is the start of a new chapter: the sound is characterized by orchestral arrangements, a heavy dose of piano, Lee Douglas' greater vocal presence, Danny's E-bow leads, occasional rhythmic experimentation, as well as post-rockish song structures that start out soft and build up to a climax. The album has a more optimistic tone than any of Anathema's previous releases, which stems from the positive changes in the band members' lives, especially Danny's:
https://getreadytorock.me.uk/blog/2013/09/interview-with-daniel-cavanagh-anathemaleafblade-25-july-2013/It was back in 2005 that I got some much needed help from a personal therapist. It was only a few sessions that I did but they were very beautiful with regards opening up my mind, releasing all past negativity and look forwards to the then present. That was very, very powerful stuff and, when that happened, my mind opened up to a new way of creativity and my lifestyle changed for the better.
Things got easier and more emotional but in a way different from what I was used to – more life-affirming, more positive. That happened in 2005, following which we got together and wrote the song “Thin Air”, with “Dreaming Light” coming together a year or two after. This was the beginning of the rebirth of Anathema!
"Angels Walk Among Us" is a sequel to "Angelica", while "Dreaming Light"
is about Danny's daughter.
We're Here Because We're Here is by far the most cohesive and complete Anathema album since
Judgement. Years of hard work paid off, and the resulting record is lively and diverse. It's not an absolute 10 like
Alternative 4 and
Judgement, but Anathema found its own identity and signature sound on this euphoric rebirth of an album, and it set the standards for the subsequent records.
Full review:
https://echotester.blogspot.com/2015/09/anathema-discography-11-were-here.html