Just before the release of their new album, working title Horizons, with the release date set in November, Anathema once again announced a little tour through Europe. In the last ten years Anathema has been playing more than twenty shows on Dutch soil. During this tour with Leafblade they also were kind enough to play multiple club shows, taking place at the Boerderij (Zoetermeer), Patronaat (Haarlem) and Doornroosje (Nijmegen). We from Metalrage checked out their sold out show in Nijmegen.

Leafblade is the band of singer/songwriter Sean Jude, who grew up in Liverpool together with the guys from Anathema. Sean started the band Leafblade with Pete Gilchrist, but he was replaced by Anathema’s Danny Cavanagh early 2009. Together with Danny, Sean wrote the well received debut album Beyond, Beyond and now he joined Anathema to let the European mainlanders experience Leafblade’s songs live. Just having Sean and Danny on stage wasn’t enough to perform most of the songs though, so they had some guest musicians with them. Although the songs were beautiful and I would most likely love them when I would be at home in front of the hearth, I couldn’t stay focused during their performance. The music was just too tedious. They also didn’t have an overwhelming stage performance due to the fact they were sitting down. All in all it unfortunately was the wrong music at the wrong time.
 

With Anathema you always know what to expect, but they always keep on surprising with an even better show. These guys know exactly what is needed to entertain an audience, whether it is with a soft, a wild or a new song. The ultimate highlight of the show was brought to us by Anneke van Giersbergen (Agua de Annique, ex-The Gathering) though. In total she sung five songs, but especially during ‘A Natural Disaster’ it was deadly quiet in the venue except for the sound of her voice. With a good mixture between old en new songs Anathema once again made a convincing appearance that will be hard to exceed the next time they come to our country. Furthermore I hope that the release of their record Horizons will not be postponed again, ‘cause songs like ‘Horizons’, ‘Angels Walk Among Us’ and ‘Everything’ need to be on a disc in my CD-collection, or even better, in my CD-player, soon!