ANTIMATTER: A Profusion Of Thought (ATMOSPHERIC ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Originally associated with Duncan Patterson, the former bassist of Anathema, it's been a long time now that Mick Moss has been leading Antimatter alone, whose name merges with his own, delivering a minimalist atmospheric rock carried by this unique voice, recognizable among thousands, full of spleen without being maudlin, vector of so many emotions that it is almost enough for itself. For more than twenty years, the albums have followed one another, sad and magnificent.

Surprisingly, although unreleased, the ten songs that fill "A Profusion Of Thought" are not recent, since they are in fact from the compositional phases of the previous records. Long left in draft form, these tracks were not bad but as Mick Moss points out, they simply didn't fit in with the albums they were made from. Aware that these more or less finished tracks were doomed to die with him one day, he decided to extract a dozen of them from his archives, to finish them and give them the life they deserve.

"A Profusion Of Thought" was born from this will and from this sometimes almost archaeological work, a collection of pieces written for some of them at the very beginning of the project (intended to appear on "Lights Out", 'Breaking The Machine' dates from 2001 for instance). We could have feared that the successor of "Black Market Enlightenment" would suffer from its fragmented elaboration in time. Not only is this not the case, the record being totally homogeneous, but it easily stands at the top of Antimatter's career.

It would have been a pity if these concentrates of emotions, these jewels of writing, had never seen the light of day! Added together, these songs even achieve a kind of synthesis of the author's career, each one reviving a little the atmosphere of the albums for which they were intended, like this 'Redshift' that we can easily imagine joining the menu of "Planetary Confinement". Supported by a luminous saxophone ('Heathen'), some flute notes or female choirs ('Templates'), Mick Moss touches the heart according to his good habit. His guitar, sometimes electric ('Kick The Dog'), most of the time skeletal, underlines the tragic power of his voice as on the heartbreaking 'Fold'. He chisels out intimate, stripped-down pieces that sweep through Antimatter's array of sounds.

While it is made up of old songs that had previously remained in draft form, 'A Profusion Of Thought' presents itself as a summary of Antimatter's career, of which it distils the main characters in small steps. Knowing that Mick Moss still has a lot of unfinished tracks in his archives, we start dreaming of seeing him making other albums of this kind... - Official website

ANTIMATTER

A PROFUSION OF THOUGHT

AUTRE LABEL

ATMOSPHERIC ROCK