My Dying Bride - The Barghest O'Whitby

Genre: Doom Metal
Name: My Dying Bride
Album: The Barghest O' Whitby
"I doubt I shall ever come back..."

It's true; I have been neglecting this blog. The last post was almost three months ago, and that was hardly standard fare for DkP. I can only offer my apologies; unfortunately, personal issues have had me waylaid from my usual musical fare. However, the skies are beginning to clear, and once again, I can return to the wonderful world of web-logging.

On that note, let me turn your attention to the subject at hand. My Dying Bride, lords of all things doom, have granted us all with another release. This EP, titled The Barghest O'Whitby, is a sharp contrast to their last output; Evinta, a 3-disc, 14-track, orchestral work could not be more different to a this 27-minute, traditional, magnificently metal work.

Musically, this work is excellent. Taylor-Steels' drumming is second-to-none; Abé's bass complements it magnificently. The guitar work is masterly yet melancholy, the harmonies as heartbreaking as they are heavy; showcasing Craigan and Glencross at their best. They combines with Macgowan's virtuoso-standard violin to create howling, haunting melodies, befitting the cold, blusterous north-English moors, upon which this tale is set. That tale is expressed in as dolorous a style as might be expected by Stainthorpe. His vocal work is exquisitely agonised, and lyrically, it is exceptionally well-written. All in all, it is a brilliant release, exactly what has come to be expected from My Dying Bride.

Summary: A doleful, doom-filled, heavy-as-hell EP for all metal fans out there.
Lyrical Themes: A Barghest
Rating: 8/10

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Evinta - My Dying Bride

Genre: Doom Metal, Ambient
Name: My Dying Bride
Album: Evinta, 2011

...Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long...

Evinta. A project almost 15 years in the making. An idea that has sat smoldering and never really had a reason to burn alive until now. 9 albums worth of darkness recreated anew to mark 20 years of MDB. Music arranged to the soundscapes of sorrows past. Finally the 20th anniversary allows us to release this music in a form it has been desperately, woefully waiting for.

Enjoy the Darkness.

My Dying Bride have long been one of my favourite metal bands, for one very simple reason. It is not because of Stainthorpe's vocal work, although that is excellent, both musically and lyrically. It is not because of the emotions invested in their songs, although they are there in abundance. It is not because of the heaviness of their music - there are far heavier bands out there, more angry and anarchistic. Rather, it is for the simple reason that they are magnificently melodic songwriters. They can use duel guitars and a violin or keys to make exquisite harmonies, where other bands fall by the wayside. The multiple voices come together to create beautiful music, which no other band seems to do anywhere quite as well. It is for this reason that when My Dying Bride elect to do songs without traditional metal instruments, as found in Sear Me and For My Fallen Angel, they don't just get away with it - they excel in it, masters of melody and elegance combined.

Thus, it was not with holy dread and closed eyes that I awaited this unusual opus from the honeydew-fed, milk-of-paradise-supping Doom lords; I waited with anticipation and excitement, gathered together my pittances and sent a rather large check to Peaceville as soon as they were open for business. And I was not disappointed. Evinta is a work of art, a magnificent, magical amalgamation of movements, melodies, music.

Certainly, this is not a typical My Dying Bride release. Glencross and Craighan's guitars are absent, Abé no longer plucks at her bass and Mullins is no longer atop his throne. In their place, we find Alice Pembroke playing a viola, beside Johan Baum's cello, and Jonny Maudling, famed for his work with Bal-Sagoth on piano, keyboards and samples. As you can see, this was not going to be a standard album - but then, it was never intended to be. It was something new and exciting, and, if that is what you were expecting, then it's just shy of perfect. However, do not expect anything heavy, anything metal. Instead, head in with an open mind, and embrace what you find.

Evinta is a mixture of all of My Dying Bride's old songs, riffs and themes, melded together with classical instruments, melted down and reforged into something entirely new. For example, in The Burning Coast of Regnum Italium, you can hear the piano carrying the melody once found in the intro to The Dreadful Hours, possibly the single most beautiful piece of music of all time. In Of Lilies Bent With Tears is found sections of Two Winters Only. I won't give any other "spoilers" - part of the fun of this album is the game of "Name the Tune" that can be played with it - but these are merely some examples of what can be expected in the work. After all, it is the manifestation of all My Dying Bride's work - "evinta" is the feminine perfect participle of "evincere", to evince or show clearly. It is a display of all the band has achieved in the past 20 years, and a beacon for the future, hope for all the music with which they have yet to capture our ears.

This work is, in a nutshell, comparable to Elend - strings are the dominant voice, and speed is most definitely not of the essence (there are certain songs that are minimalist almost to the point of a drone-esque sound). However, there are important differences to that band. Whereas Elend favour screeching, disharmonious violins, My Dying Bride have gone far more in the direction of mellifluous melody and harmonies which hang from each other like icicles on pine branches. I have even managed to convince various people that this is, in fact, genuinely Classical music, age-old and well-beloved.

However, one could not have a My Dying Bride release without Stainthorpe's unique vocal work, and here, in Evinta, he comes up trumps, with new lyric genius sewn into the fabric of the album. Incontrovertibly, my favourite track on the album is In Your Dark Pavilion, which finishes with some of the best singing I've ever heard:

"I dream of being
Beside her
As I move
Through this water
Step over here
You Devil
Her earth looks like
My dying skin"

Stainthorpe's tortured voice dances so elegantly with the piano that the angels themselves would weep. And this is far from unique - the singing found in The Music Of Flesh is magnificent, and the lyrics of And All Their Joy Was Drowned are poetic brilliance.

However, Stainthorpe is not alone. The soprano Lucie Roche also takes to the stage, singing in English, French and Latin magnificently. The best example of her melodic voice can be found in Vanité Triomphante, the promo track released by Peaceville in edited form, which can be found here, in exchange for your email address, but is also included below.

In conclusion, therefore, I could not recommend this stellar work more highly. Certainly, it is not for the run-of-the-mill brutal death metal fan, who thinks that speed and skill equate to each other - but then, if you're reading this blog, you're probably not a run-of-the-mill metalhead. It's a elegant, resplendent work, shining in majesty and, I'll admit, just a hint of vanity, but rightly so - no other band could pull this off. Even Dream Theater have tempered their orchestral works with heavier tracks.

Summary: Magnificent orchestral doom, perfect for My Dying Bride fans and musical kalophiles of all kinds.
Lyrical Themes: Still analysing, but typical of My Dying Bride's work - melancholy and dejected, but beautiful
Rating: 10/10
Track listing:

Disc 1
1 - In Your Dark Pavilion
2 - You Are Not The One Who Loves Me
3 - Of Lilies Bent With Tears
4 - The Distance, Busy With Shadows
5 - Of Sorry Eyes In March

Disc 2
1 - Vanité Triomphante
2 - That Dress And Summer Skin
3 - And Then You Go
4 - A Hand Of Awful Rewards

Disc 3 (Collectors' Edition: What I do for you people...)
1 - The Music Of Flesh
2 - Seven Times She Wept
3 - The Burning Coast Of Regnum Italicum
4 - She Heard My Body Dying
5 - And All Their Joy Was Drowned

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I'd recommend getting your hands on one of the deluxe copies if you can - they come in great packaging, with excellent production value, and paragraphs on each of My Dying Bride's albums.

My Dying Bride - The Lies I Sire

Genre: Death-Doom Metal
Name: My Dying Bride
Album: For Lies I Sire, 2009
Like Gods of the Sunset sounds...

Ironically, for a band I haven't reviewed, I think My Dying Bride are the most mentioned band on here - they feature at least once on 5 different pages, and on all but one of those they are referred to multiple times. Therefore, I thought it only sensible that I should at least give those who have not heard them a chance to have a listen to at least some of their music, and see why I go on about them so much.

Picking which album to review was always going to be a tough decision - their body of work is so expansive, to pick any one limb of it would be to leave the bulk of the corpus untouched and unexplained - should I go for the arm that is Like Gods Of The Sun, with the excellent violin and traditional doom sound? But what about 34.788%... Complete, the experimental brain of their work? And how could I ignore the shining, glorious face that is A Line Of Deathless Kings? There was so much from which to choose, but only one that I could pick. I briefly contemplated a Meisterwerk, but they precede some of my favourites - The Dreadful Hours and Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light would be ignored, to say the least. Eventually, however, I made my choice.

Prior to my note-taking for this review, it would be a lie to have said that I had listened to For Lies I Sire, My Dying Bride's latest release. I had heard all of the songs, many, many times in most cases, but I had never sat down, put on the CD, turned off the lights, lain down on the floor and just absorbed the music (according to Tom Delonge of Angels and Airwaves, you should listen to albums with just the light of a single candle to see by). So, with notepad in hand, that is just what I did - turned on the album, and closed my eyes. And it was brilliant.

It is not my favourite album of theirs, but then that is like saying that of all the Fender Stratocasters in the world, you dislike that one the most. Aside from their early and more Deathening works, which I enjoy, but not as much as everything from Turn Loose The Swans onwards, I think that every album My Dying Bride have made is a masterpiece in its own right, and this was no exception. Right from the very first track, My Body, a Funeral, which opens with a lone slow guitar riff, and Stainthorpe's plaintive voice in exquisite harmony, you can tell that this album will be exceptional. However, they do not stick to purely slow and doom-laden riffs - the other side of the coin is showcased in the vary next track, Fall With Me, which is faster and heavier, the Death of Death-Doom metal, but without it jarring in the ear. The title track is similarly awe-inspiring, with the same atmosphere of dread and fear, and the album goes on to end, somewhat aptly, with Death Triumphant. Throughout the album, you find tracks of exquisite beauty and pathos interwoven with those of anger and rage, you find smooth curves juxtaposed with jagged edges, and you see harmony and dissonance each play their part in a mystifying but fascinating dance.

Through this dance, however, you can hear other albums, reflections beneath the surface, just occasionally managing to sneak a sound or a face above the water, to let you know that they're still there, that they haven't gone away. This is most noticeable in A Chapter In Loathing, the penultimate track, which begins with the same riff which closed A Line Of Deathless Kings. It's also apparent in other tracks - Bring Me Victory has drums with just smack of those of Apocalypse Woman from 34.788%... Complete, for example. All of those other albums which are the columns of My Dying Bride's temple are still there, if you only listen.

But it's not all the same old stuff, regurgitated just like a puppy that's eaten chocolate - My Dying Bride are not a puppy but a full grown hound, and it turns out that you can teach an old dog new tricks. Santario Di Sangue is a prime example of this - here, for what I believe to be the first time (other than a sample of some rain on The Dreadful Hours), they have used sound effects - specifically, that of a whinnying horse and a spade shovelling the earth, which, for me, at least, brings to mind grave robbery. These are, to some degree, awkwardly positioned - the sudden stop did make me think that they were the start of a new song, rather than the third minute of the current one - but they work well with the shrieking violin, if you can call it that, which isn't instantly identified as an instrument, since it blends so perfectly with the sample.

The lyrics, of course are as excellent as always: Stainthorpe (who is incidentally also an artist, and a rather good one at that - click the link for 12 pages of artistic and gothic nightmares. And a picture of a friend at an exhibition they were at) keeps some of his trademarks - for example, in Echoes From A Hollow Soul, he uses his traditional biblical imagery, talking of "sons of Adam" and "daughters of Eve" (Narnia, anyone?), and in ShadowHaunt there are lines which seem inspired by Wordsworth (specifically, the line "Through forests she walks every day" seems to me to be similar to She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways, and Stainthorpe has admitted being inspired by Romantic poetry before). However, he has also kept from his usual erotic verse, not writing (as far as my mind can tell) any of his usual poetic, imaginative, metaphorical and yet sordid but still dignified songs, songs like The Whore, The Cook And The Mother and Le Figilie Della Tempesta.
Besides from lyrics, he also employs a range of vocal styles - in this album, there are clean vocals, two different kinds of death metal grunts, whispers and a choir (whilst technically not him, this does still come under vocals).

So, in conclusion, I feel this was the best album to have chosen not only because I could come to it afresh, not jaded by any previous emotions of the songs, not only because it is an excellent album, with no single moment that seems a mistake, but because it is an excellent introduction to My Dying Bride's magna opera, being a combination of old and new techniques, and thus a good album to post for any newcomer to the Doom metal scene.


Summary: Kings of the doom metal genre once again prove to the baying crowds why they are the rulers of their kingdom
Lyrical Themes: Despair, pain, romance, losing faith
Rating: 10/10 - recommended
Track listing:
1. My Body, A Funeral
2. Fall With Me
3. The Lies I Sire
4. Bring Me Victory
5. Echoes from a Hollow Soul
6. ShadowHaunt
7. Santuario di Sangue
8. A Chapter in Loathing
9. Death Triumphant

Myspace - Although one can easily bring the officialness of this page into question, it has music to listen to.

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Angtoria - God Has A Plan For Us All

Genre: Gothic Metal
Name: Angtoria
Album: God Has A Plan For Us All, 2006
Music begets more music

I cam across this album while researching My Dying Bride, and discovering that Aaron Stainthorpe had done some of the vocals. So, after a brief excursion to Youtube, I decided that this band must be worth a listen, and I wasn't too disappointed.

This band has quite some musical heritage: The singer, Sarah Jezebel Deva, was a member of Cradle of Filth, the brothers Chris and Tommy Rehn have been in Abyssos and Moahni Moahna, respectively, and the bassist is Dave Pybus of Cradle of Filth (again) and Anathema and the drummer appears to have been from a certian My Own Grave (not the one that features on this album, however. Originally just Deva and Chris Rehn, who met while touring together, after a successful demo including the cover of a Kylie Minogue song, the band featured on a compilation and then recorded this in 2006.

As for the orchestration, you can clearly here the influence of Cradle of Filth in the extensive use of orchestras - this also is the result of C. Rehn's idea for a completely orchestral project. Throughout this album the orchestra, and especially the strings, provide a melodic background, to the extent that guitars are few and far between. However, the one purely orchestral piece does not live up to the rest of the album - the introductory track Awakening seems, whilst not quite atonal, to be lacking an actual melody, and is more a series of themes, placed one after the other, swiftly changing and never developed. Fortunately, in later songs Angtoria easily show that they are capable of much more.
Aside from the orchestra, there is also exceptional use of keyboards and synthesisers, especially in Suicide On My Mind, which add an interesting touch of variety from time to time. The percussion section is also very good - whilst the drums never seem divinely inspired, there is an interesting use of rhythm from time to time, and the more relaxed and mellow percussion on What The Wise Lady Said. Indeed, The Addiction sees the use of very good drums, reminiscent of E. S. Posthumus

However, I did have one or two problems. I won't mention about how dull it is that the entire album is in common time, but I will express a personal dislike for the singer's voice. Whilst in Cradle of Filth, she was very good; however, in this album, aside from the fairly predictable vocal melodies, there is just something, some sort of twang in Deva's voice that I can't get along with. However, that is just my opinion, and she is a very capble singer - in the intro to Confide in Me, there is an excellent moment when you start of listening to a violin, and then, slowly and subtley, it changes, until you have an epiphany when you realise that what was once a (very good) violin melody is now being sung, but you couldn't pinpoint the change at all. Besides this, there is a bit of variety created by the use of death growls in Original Sin, which create an interesting change whilst remaining comprehensible. Another variation is found in Original Sin, where Stainthorpe makes his token appearance with a spoken contribution.

In addition, the almost obligatory use of breaks does tend to wear a bit as the album progresses, since there is a moment in almost every song where everything just stops for a second or two, then carries on. As a musical device, it is somewhat overused, and rarely well executed - look at Suicide On My Mind. However, once again, there are moments where it is very, very good: for example the breaks in Deity of Disgust are excellent.

In conclusion, therefore, I would say this is a good album, but not a great one. It has its moments, but it also has its flaws. Overall, however, it is worth a listen, and I'd recommend it to any Gothic metal fan.

Summary: Interesting and well orchestrated Gothic metal, but with a few problems that need a bit of a patch

Lyrical Themes: "abuse in general"

Rating: 6/10

Track listing:
1.The Awakening
2.I'm Calling
3.God Has a Plan For Us All
4.Suicide On My Mind
5.Deity Of Disgust
6.The Addiction
7.Six Feet Under's Not Deep Enough
8.Do You See Me Now?
9. Original Sin
10. Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned
11. Confide In Me (as made famous by Kylie Minogue)
12. That's What The Wise Lady Said


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