The Optimist by Anathema
"The Optimist" is the eleventh album by rock band Anathema. The album was released on June 9, 2017, through Kscope, three years after their last release, Distant Satellites. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 6 reviews, indicating "Universal acclaim ".
The Liverpool group’s 11th album is a conceptual sequel to their sixth, 2001’s <i>A Fine Day to Exit</i>, made when they were still a doomy metal outfit. But <i>The Optimist</i> caps their interim transformation into a cinematic art-rock ensemble, whether building minimal electronic beats into hard-charging anthems (“Leaving It Behind”) or using desolate piano chords to summon a shoegaze tsunami (“Springfield”). This album finds its suitably grand finale in “Back to the Start”, whose comfortably numbing Floydian sway blossoms into orchestral ecstasy.
