I have just joined the staff here at AltSounds and I'm very happy to be here. While I wait to receive the first few discs of brand new music I have asked to review, I wanted to recommend an album that's a couple years old that I really like. The band has been mentioned here before, but it appears no one has done a full review of this great album.

I can't remember where I read this but someone on a discussion board described the band Anathallo as "how Sufjan Stevens would sound if he liked to rock out more and every member of his band had an IQ of 150." I wish I could find that again to credit the author because having become a big fan of Anathallo, I have to agree with his assessment and I like how he phrased it. The music is complex and the melodies are generally pleasing. And they do rock.

Anathallo is usually lumped in with Indie music -- a category that is becoming as broad as "Alternative" -- but much of their work sounds almost like old Progressive Rock. Songs often have several disparate movements linked by long instrumental bridges. As a seven piece, they are able to create a lot of sound and they blend their skills to transition smoothly between song segments.

Anathallo is led by vocalist / giga-instrumentalist Matt Joynt, who hails from Mt. Pleasant, MI. The rest of the band has undergone more line-up changes since 2000 than the Kansas City Royals as they tried to get their footing in the music business. I could see that issue creating some difficulties, given the complexity of the musical arrangements. It seems now though that the members have quit their day jobs to focus on Anathallo. Good news for the rest of us.

In 2006, Anathallo released their first LP 'Floating World'. It was a concept album apparently based on a Japanese fairy tale, so we are treated to track names like 'Dokkoise House', 'Hanasakajijii', and 'Kasa no Hone'. However esoteric the inspiration was for the disc, the music is entrancing. The vocal melodies are original and the harmony vocals are sweet. The percussion is organic and powerful and it incorporates everything from hand claps and sleigh bells to glockenspiel. The horns serve like a Swiss army knife -- always the right tool for a variety of jobs.

I pulled 6 tracks from 'Floating World' to live on my iPod and that’s a pretty good ratio.

In particular I want to recommend “The Bruised Reed.” This song made me a fan. What an amazing piece.


If you watch the embed then do yourself a favor and stick around for the final 2 1/2 minutes of this song. The energetic melody that starts at the 3:15 mark is incredible. I absolutely could not get this passage out of my head for weeks. I was singing it in the shower and in my car.

I only recently finished digesting 'Floating World' but I see they released their second LP, Canopy Glow, in 2008. Perhaps I’ll review that as well, once I’ve given it the number of listens I’m sure it will undoubtedly merit.

Anathallo - Canopy Glow