The seventh album in fifteen years of Antimatter is the classic event that should deserve much more space than those in which such works are usually confined, at least in our miserable musical Italy. Yes, because it’s not every day that you can listen to an album so inspired, touching and performed impeccably by a band like the one led by a musician like Mick Moss who, despite his modesty and reluctance, rises countless spans above the competition. After a sad and painfully self-absorbed record like Leaving Eden, it had taken five years before we could hear new material from Antimatter, and Fear Of A Unique Identity had arrived to show a new propensity for more airy melodic openings and a more rock form entrusted to songs that, in its splendid predecessor, had mostly the appearance of the acoustic ballad. The Judas Table is placed exactly halfway between these two musical expressions, showing both faces, both separately in some songs, and simultaneously in others: the end result is what perhaps it was easy to expect from those who adore this magnificent musician, while being at the same time anything but obvious. Find me someone else today who is able to touch the innermost chords of the soul in such an emotional way just with his voice and an acoustic guitar, as Moss is able to do several times in this work: once we get to Comrades the tears have already been almost exhausted and we are not even a third of the way through; this song, legitimate daughter of Leaving Eden, is preceded in the setlist by the magnificent Black Eyed Man and the more animated and potential single Killer. Stillborn Empires starts again from where the opener began, that is from those melancholic sounds covered with a more accentuated rhythmic that can enhance the pearly passages, and then opens in an airy orchestral final that enhances the impact painfully solemn. Little Piggy brings us back to the acoustic tones of Comrades, proving to be another of the emotional peaks of the album, while Hole is always introspective but slightly less involving, proving to be the ideal introduction to the dazzling Can Of Worms, a song with a chorus that would make even Alter Bridge envious. The catchiness of Integrity, enriched by a beautiful guitar solo and equally enhancing female vocals, anticipates the title track, another of the many jewels scattered in an album that sits firmly at the top of my annual playlist with many chances to stay there. Mick Moss manages once again to move and amaze us, this time taking thematic cues from the betrayal, seen from the side of those who have suffered, but without forgetting, I add, even those who have perpetrated acting lightly and receiving in many cases as the right sentence to continue to live with the weight of irreparable pain that has caused. I forgot, The Judas Table closes with another acoustic track titled Goodbye, short but intense more than entire records, leaving us in a contrasting feeling of melancholy mixed with serenity that, in fact, is the true and indelible trademark of Antimatter.

2015 – Prophecy Productions