MY DYING BRIDE

My Dying Bride formed in the early 90s and quickly became the most respected and important doom metal band ever. From Theater of Tragedy to Paramaecium, every doom/death metal band since owes something to their sound, whether it's the beginning of orchestration in death metal or the epic style they pioneered, My Dying Bride have been the symbol of doom metal, the darkest of the dark, the most downcast and depressing style ever to hit heavy metal as a whole. And in defining this sound, My Dying Bride have also come to be perhaps the most depressing band ever as well. Their lyrical subject matter very often directly reflects their band name, and now having been through two of their albums, I've yet to hear even the slightest glimpse of hope.

This is largely due to two of the band members in particular two two of the band members. Aaron Stainthorpe's vocals are the most miserable and flat out unhappy I've ever heard in my life, and while I can't get myself to appreciate his growling on the early albums as much as I'd like to, his clean voice, which became the only type he used by the time The Angel and the Dark River was released, is truly beautiful. The other member who contributes to the band's hopeess sound more than any other is (or rather was, as he left in 1998) Martin Powell, who served as both keyboardist and violinist for the band. I don't even know how he made his violin sound so much more sorrowful than I've heard from any other player, and whether the band is doing the band is doing dome odd thing with the production to make it sound like this or if it's just the context of the music or if I just need to listen to more violin piece, I don't know, but nevertheless Powell contributed majorly to the sound of the group.

All around My Dying Bride switched from a death/doom outfit to simply doom around the mid 90s, which both mellowed out their sound some and made them more effective in their mission of gloom. They've maintained their fanbase, and unless the reviewers lie, kept up a pretty consistent standard of quality throughout their career, except for 34.788%... Complete, their 'experimental' album, or so they say.

--Robert Grazer

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THE ANGEL AND THE DARK RIVER (1995)

(reviewed by Robert Grazer)

HIGH POINTS: From Darkest Skies, The Cry of Mankind, Two Winters Only, Black Voyage. LOW POINTS: None.

It's hard to describe how bleak and hopeless the music on The Angel And The Dark River really is. I tried to give an idea in the intro of how My Dying Bride have always been an extremely depressing group, but until you hear the music itself, you still have no idea what it's really like. In fact, the best way, I think, to describe the sorrow and drear of this album is with the closing track, "Your Shameful Heaven". Admittedly it's not one of the best on the album, as the lyrics aren't really as good as the other entries on the album, which sort of drags the overall effect down a bit, but the song still begins with a beautiful violin solo before sinking into endless pain and suffering of music. It's the only somewhat uptempo song in the album, it still ranks as a true suicidal low in comparison with most music. Try to understand that that theis is by far the most uplifting moment on the album. And if you still long for even bleaker yet more beautiful music, the rest awaits.

"The Cry of Mankind" opens with an epic length of twelve minutes, repeating a guitar sample and building on that for the first six or seven minutes, with one hell of a piano line and truly mournful vocals, repeating all sorts of bleak lines, "We live and die without hope..." and so on. What really makes the song unique, though, is the closing five minutes, where the only actual music remaining is the sample, and the rest is taken up by ambient sound clips of some waves, ships, and other sounds. It's odd how frightening it is, particularly toward the end when all that remains is a singing choir. It's not something I listen to everytime through the album, but it's never somethng that bores me.

It's just impatience, really. I mean, come one, as neat as a little ambient experiement may be, "From Darkest Skies" is the albums's ultimate highlight, and quite an amazing song. Building up from a simple bass riff it hits an incredible melodic high backed by the "But river still runs, with reddest tears". It's also perhaps the most depressing note on the album, as well as one of those songs that really reflects the band's name. Some of the all around heaviest sections appear here too, though. It's not 'extreme' by any means, as even the heaviest guitar parts are slowly pounding away through the song, not speeding away at a Cannibal Corpse pace, but the sound is so thick and the guitars so endlessly heavy that the overall effect may even seem more aggressive than any ridiculous grindcore band.

"Black Voyage" is a nine minute epic which I've seen as a choice for the saddest MDB song in a couple of places. I may not agree ("For My Fallen Angel" from the following album takes that title), but it does manage to keep in with the atmosphere of the previous two songs. The mid-section falls into a slow bass riff and vocals that are merely moaning out the words in some extremely low notes, but it works successfully in building up the atmosphere. Following is a little more of an eastern flavor in "A Sea To Suffer In", the shortest song on the abum, I believe, and even though it's six minutes long, it does feel shorter than the others. Maybe a little too short at times. Nevertheless the piano line is more than enough to make it a winner.

Another major highlight shows up in the Paramaecium sounding "Two Winters Only", which spends well over half the song in acoustic verses before hitting the distorted climactic choruses twice. The lyrics are probably my favorites on the album, if I understand them correctly. The story of the song had to do with a general in battle whose bride died amidst the war he's been fightng in, and now he no longer feels the need, will, or strength to fight his enemies in the war. It's very well-written, Stainthorpe's brilliant vocal delivery fitting the character quite well. And you've got to love that descending dum bit before the first chorus.

Lyrics like that, though, and the way they are described, are what make My Dying Bride such a successfully miserable band. Instead of descrbing the hardships and pains of real lfe, they cover topics that are too depressing to actually be real. I mean, come on, how many times can your girlfriends die before females start avoiding you altogether? Perhaps the music loses a sense of reality by that but, well, if you want depressing reality that's what Joy Division are for. And so in just six songs My Dying Bride manage to make one of the best metal albums of the decade, or ever for that matter. You mght be looking at the best album of 1995 here too. I dunno. there was some good stuff that year. No matter what, though, keep an eye out if you're curious about taking fifty minutes out of your life and emersing yourself in the world of My Dring Bride.

OVERALL RATING: 9

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