ANTIMATTER
LEAVING

Unconstrained and with tremendous force – that’s a good way to characterize Mick Moss’ performance on ANTIMATTER’s fourth album, “Leaving Eden.” The Englishman has undoubtedly found a way to gather his own power after his composing partner of many years, Duncan Patterson, has left the band – and this power has flown into a kind of music that, lo and behold, has quite a rocking edge at times. “I wanted to create power and wide spaces in the studio,” Mick says. He was envisioning a “dark and laid-back rock album”, combining the hardest with the most light-hearted songs from ANTIMATTER’s history. It seems fitting, then, that Mick invited a more than competent session musician, Anathema’s guitarist Danny Cavanagh, into the studio for the dynamic recordings. The sensitive riffs and melodies do open vast spaces for Mick’s vocals – sounding self-confident and melancholic at the same time – and his personal lyrics with their introspective focus. “The album stands on its own two feet,” Mick acknowledges the changes in sound, which he however doesn’t think are that huge: “There are so many familiar elements; there’s one song with a violin lead like on ‘Planetary Confinement’, there are atmospheric parts, but now there are also the rockier tracks.” To the listeners, all of the above means that once again they are invited to sit back and join ANTIMATTER on their journey – a lively one at first, then growing ever more pensive to finally end in contemplation. Like in that line in the album’s last song, “Fighting For A Lost Cause”: “Some things never change” – this is also true of ANTIMATTER’s haunting atmospheres …