100 Greatest Songs of the 2010’s #85 Anathema – Untouchable, Part 1

There must be something wonderful about being able to make music and get people to listen without having to keep up the act of being something else: Weather Systems, the album from which this is the opening track, charted right across Europe and yet you’d wager it would be a challenge for anyone to recognise a single member of the Liverpudlian quintet on the street.

Untouchable’s first part is a blissful, almost archaic song, full of sweeping folk-rock harmonies and fully content in it’s own sense of grace and power. Unashamedly romantic in tone, there’s a skillful ebb and flow to writer Daniel Cavanagh’s work that captures their appeal: all passion, without pretense.