Hailing from Sweden, Anata is band known for their unique brand of Technical Death Metal which emphasizes unconventional melodies and harmonies. This style peaked on their 2006 release “The Conductor’s Departure” and is probably their most iconic offering before they sank into oblivion. Even before their peak we got a glimpse of what was to come on the debut album “The Infernal Depths Of Hatred”. Released through Season Of Mist on October 4th 1998, Anata showed us what a combination of At The Gates like melody and Morbid Angel like weirdness and rhythmic interplay can sound like, while maintaining some of their own touches and ideas, those who further added to the uniqueness of their sound before leaning towards a more straightforward Technical/Brutal Death Metal style on their follow ups.
The production on this record allows for a clear distinction between all Instruments, with a beefy and thick guitar tone, that also allows the mesmerizing melodies to emerge and have a singing character to them. Vocals are the most present in the mix but they don’t distract the listener at all, considering that Anata guides us through the compositions with the help of melodies. Drums sound very typical for a late 90s Death Metal Album, everything can be discerned and is perfectly audible while sounding very sterile without being annoying or sounding overly artificial.
The aforementioned melodies lead us to the centrepiece of this record which obviously are the guitars. Fredrik Schälin and Andreas Allenmark took a lot of inspiration from US Death Metal Bands like Morbid Angel which can be heard in Songs like “Under Azure Skies” or “Those Who Lick The Wounds Of Christ”, where sliding power chords roar in heavy rhythms which are accompanied by the drums. The second set of riffs mainly takes inspiration from the Swedish scene, which can be definitely heard in “Slain Upon His Altar” and the Outro of “Under Azure Skies”. The tremolor picked melodies which occur mostly to advance the song and bring each phase of to its conclusion or to create a certain mood, like in “Slain Upon His Altar” after the short reoccurrence of the clean guitar which opens the song. Of note is how great Schälin expresses the lyrics of being lost in a land where the citizens possess a weak spirit and follow a meaningless existence while a wistful melody wanders along to his screams.
Other elements of Anata’s style are the few clean intros that sometimes get accompanied by synthesizers that play eerie and soft tones. On the opposite end of the spectrum the listener can find a lot of fast, more aggressive syncopated riffs where dissonant chords occur after playing the root note a few times. While those elements don’t seem too special or outstanding, one should not forget the trademark melodies that constantly emerge. Those melodies sound like child’s play, almost dreamlike as they appear and slowly disappear before returning to the furious Death Metal. It varies from song to song on how a melody is used, in songs such as “Let The Heavens Hate” the resting chords and their melody carry everything, while in “Dethrone The Hypocrites” (Around 2:40) the melody enhances the song immensely and evolves to its final stages as the track progresses.
Robert Petersson’s drums mostly consist of standard blast beats as they accompany the guitars, although he certainly knows how to enhance the impact of the guitars in the more rhythm oriented sections where he manages to make the heavy power chords sound even more punishing by accentuating the beat. Most melodies and tremolo picked passages get supported by steady streams of double bass playing and cymbal hits, which in all honesty is very underwhelming for a band that holds such a high pedigree in technicality, but considering that there is such a heavy focus on guitars one could see that the drums and their composition might have faded into the background. This is more an observation than an insult to Petersson’s playing as he certainly does things good enough to keep the songs moving and interesting, especially with the ridiculous fast blast beats during the melodic sections of the second track.
Besides handling guitar duties, Fredrik Schälin also took care of lyrics and vocal duties which seems very obvious after hearing how much emotion and power is put behind some of his screams and growls. His higher pitched scream leans a lot towards a more black metal type of sound, although there is no real grit or rasp in his voice, so the vocals stay constant in pitch and sound while his lower growls are very reminiscent of Charles Eliott of Abysmal Dawn, where his voice sounds less projected and held back as being pushed out in a very aggressive matter contrary to the Vocalists of the early 90s. Lyrically this album doesn’t feature anything interesting or revealing, as it’s mostly raging against deities and their followers or more introspective lyrics about journeys of the inner self wandering, although they don’t reach the enlightening and even inspiring heights as The Red in The Sky is Ours did.
With “The Infernal Depths of Hatred” Anata released a very promising, but also slightly flawed full length which showed a band full of ideas that allowed for a distinct sound at a time when Death Metal started to fall apart due to bands following trends and were taking too much inspiration from their peers instead of finding their own version of Death Metal. Sadly Anata never lived up to that foundation as they later carried on to a more modern, sterile and unsatisfying sound before their 2006 Album “The Conductor’s Departure” launched them into oblivion.
So give me pain
Teach me to know myself again
For self-denial is the norm
On which all my thoughts
And identity was formed
So show me pain
Fulfill all my dreams
That have been veiled in vain
For my blood and my veins are of sin
And my soul has been sold so show me pain
