Anata reviews

[Jo]

Primal Agony http://www.geocities.com/primalagony

Anata - Under A Stone With No Inscription
Sweden’s Anata are truly hard to pin down sound wise at the best of times, but if there were ever a description that best pigeonholes their unique delivery of their songs, it would have to be progressive death metal.
Unlike most pounding out the standard breed of death metal these days, Anata weaves in and out of odd stop/start movements, technical brutality, and at times, progressive guitar work that is reminiscent of guitar virtuosos of an otherwise unrelated genre and style of music. After stints with Seasons Of Mist and Relapse Records, Anata (Who are guitarist/vocalist Fredrik Schälin, guitarist Andreas Allenmark, bassist Henrik Drake and drummer Conny Pettersson) have signed to Earache Records subsidiary label Wicked World for their third full-length album ‘Under A Stone With No Inscription’.
Although Anata are far from becoming a household name within the death metal genre, this album will certainly bring multitudes of true believers who feel that the scene within Sweden has since lost it’s edge with an overtly accessible edge over the last couple of years.
As with most albums of it’s kind, ‘Under A Stone With No Inscription’ isn’t easy to memorised over a single listening session, and only with repeated listens do the complex and progressive elements within the song writing finally start to reveal itself.
Over the course of the albums forty-minute length (Spread over ten tracks), cuts such as ‘Entropy Within’, ‘Built On Sand’ and the lengthy closing number ‘Any Kind Of Magic Or Miracle’ really capture the intensity and improvisational skills within the bands members. For death metal that requires patience and an appreciation for the skill required to hold your attention rather than pound away in a typically monotonous method, check out Anata.
For more information on Anata, check out - http://www.varberg.se/~drake/

 

[Jo]

Kerrang magazine (Australia)
Swede, Swede Noise - Swedish obscurists tear up the death metal rule book.
In truth, it was inevitable. The worlds of brutal death metal and blistering, tangled mathcore have always had a great deal in common, not least their unashamed complexity, and so Anata's astonishing sound comes not as a surprise but as a blessed relief. Finally, someone has built a sufficiently convincing bridge between the two genres, and one that stands head and shoulders above the vast majority of extreme metal currently vying for our attention. Due to the steady onward march of music technology and expectations raised by its recent, impressive creative resurgence, death metal has become ever more technically dazzling and pitilessly precise in recent years, with standards of musicianship rising exponentially as a result.
Anata may not be quite in the Dream Theater league, but there are moments on this, the Swedes' third full length album, that genuinely defy belief.
The opening track, Shackled To Guilt, is as fearsome a statement of intent as you'll hear all year; four minutes of warped, angular riffs, dizzying temp changes and obtuse melodic flourishes. It's like listening to The Dillinger Escape Plan and Decapitated at the same time; a physically overpowering frenzy of fiendish ideas; delivered with revolutionary zeal. Meanwhile, Dance To The Song Of Apathy blends corrosive blastbeats with an irresistible, headbang-friendly, trad metal gallop; Under The Debris goes down more unexpected avenues than a brain damaged cab driver before concluding with a sour, dissonant melodic riff that drips with hellish menace; and, best of all, The Drowning takes Slayer's evil threats and filters them through Morbid Angel's grotesque hall of musical mirrors to unnerving and uplifting effect.
It's all bewildering, brilliant stuff; an entirely fresh and original approach to death metal that, despite its structural density, never uses eight riffs when two really fucking good ones will do, never sacrifices catchiness for overt showmanship and, most importantly of all, never disappears up its own arse. This is a virtuoso display of crushing speed, dexterity and ruthless sonic savagery that manages to stretch extreme metal's boundaries while providing plenty of moments of satisfying, primal bludgeon at the same time. All in all, a devastating start to 2004. - KKKK

 

[Dr Psyklonic]

should be interesting when they support Decapitated at the end of the month

 

[Jo]

Indeed. Also playing are Rotting Christ & Thus Defiled.

Sain magazine

Sweden's Anata are truly hard to pin down sound-wise at the best of times, so it would best be described as progressive death metal. Unlike most, Anata weave in and out of odd stop/start movements, technical brutality, and at times, progressive guitar work that is reminiscent of guitar virtuosos of an otherwise unrelated genre. Only with repeated listens to the complex and progressive elements within songs such as "Entropy Within", "Built On Sand" and the lengthy closing number "Any Kind Of Magic Or Miracle" reveal the captured intensity and improvisational skills within the bands individual members. Anata is for those who feel that death metal has lost its edge to an overtly accessible sound for too long.

 

[Jo]

"FUCK! I love METAL…and count my blessings that I’m able to listen to this great music form. Take Anata’s new album Under A Stone With No Inscription, it’s one hell of a way to start 2004 and is going to be hard to better, they just show no mercy in their free flowing, all-inspiring multileveled insanity that’s displayed on Under A Stone With No Inscription (fantastic name for an album, by the way). Hailing from Sweden Under A Stone With No Inscription is Anata’s 3rd release. Personally it’s been hard to remove from my C.D player. Dance To The Song Of Apathy, The Drowning and Leaving The Spirit Behind are my best tracks, but who am I kidding they all devastate. A mate of mine said Anata reminded him of Deep Purple!! While of course sounding nothing like them (he’s an old Deep Purple fan from the 70’s and not into metal) but I think it’s an interesting comparison." - 5-5

 

[Jo]

Db magazine http://www.dbmagazine.com.au/326/cd-Anata.shtml

"What's so refreshing about 'Under A Stone With No Inscription' is that Anata see technical metal as more than just a patchwork of random riffs cobbled together with a few jazz rhythms (I'm looking at you, Ephel Duath). Instead, Anata's brand of technical metal is characterised by excellent musicianship and artful songwriting.

With so many bands trying so hard to be musically 'clever', 'Under A Stone With No Inscription' has a natural spontaneity which aptly demonstrates the difference between what the average technical metal band can accomplish and what bands at the pinnacle of their field can achieve.

Anata prize the song form as the foundation of their songwriting, linking disparate, often maze-like, riffs with repeated motifs and an instinctive sensitivity to the feel of each song. This is why 'Under A Stone' succeeds where so many other albums fail; they realise that without good songs, the album would just degenerate into pretentious 'head' music. For Anata, great music is not just something that should display the complexities of the band's technical prowess (although this is very often a big part of their songwriting), but rather it is something that also penetrates that deep, primal, inarticulate realm of the psyche that the best metal meshes with.

'Under A Stone With No Inscription' is the third album for this Swedish band and the first to be released on Earache. It is a labyrinthine, eclectic yet cohesive album which combines death metal precision with noisecore dissonance. The perfect balance between listenability and technical wizardry, the album covers an enormous spectrum of different moods, incorporating stunning moments of melody seamlessly within an overall mood of malevolence (e.g. Dance To The Song Of Apathy, Any Kind Of Magic Or Miracle).

The songs have a complexity and an energy that is disarmingly and deceptively accessible without sounding wimpy or commercial. Anata is being hailed as the future of death metal, and if 'Under A Stone With No Inscription' is anything to go by, I can't wait." - Michelle Phillipov

 

[Jo]

Blistering http://www.blistering.com
[8.5/10] Come to think of it, find another word other than 'brutal' that is more proper to describe death metal. Certainly there are a few adjectives floating about that can describe music that is always bordering on sheer noise, yet who really is brutal these days? Some of you will point to the Sunshine State, others will point to those dudes from South Carolina fascinated with King Tut, while many will cite a couple of bands from Brazil as being brutal. This writer and a select few will point to fertile grounds of Sweden, and this fine band by the name of Anata, who are going to rewrite the annals of death metal before they are through.

Anata is more or less akin to Dying Fetus, minus the hardcore elements that are so necessary to Dying Fetus's sound. Much like Dying Fetus, Anata plays death metal of the highest difficulty level that combines outlandish guitar work and brutal breakdowns in the context of brutal death metal. Anata strings this style together in such a catchy and convincing manner, you almost lose sight of how much is actually going on. By establishing this sense of groove and continuity, one can make a clear distinction of all 10 tracks on the album, where no two songs sound alike, something that is almost unheard of in brutal death metal.

This organic, free-flowing approach works brilliantly in album highlights ‘Leaving The Spirit Behind’ and ‘A Problem Yet To Be Solved’ where deft-defying riffing meets machine-gun drumming in a seamless fashion. Elsewhere, ‘Sewerages Of The Mind’ throws in some memorable harmonizing and tasteful soloing. Dig deep and you'll find several hints of melody buried within the maze of baffling guitar work. ‘Entropy Within’ is a song that on the surface should feel too uncomfortable to grasp, but after the second listen a firm grasp of what Anata is trying to do is established.

Its very rare that we are treated to a brutal death metal album of this quality, thought, care, and precision, but pulled off with such reckless abandon. This is the beauty of Anata; a band that should be too complex and extreme to comprehend yet is anything but. Under A Stone With No Inscription is the third installment in a career that has set out to implode the preconceived notions of death metal. This is beyond recommended to anyone who fancies the usual suspects of death metal, and for those who crave so much more.