My Dying Bride Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

MY DYING BRIDE: “THE GHOST OF ORION”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule 1 Response »

Mar 032020

(DGR prepared this review of the new 13th album by My Dying Bride, which will be released on March 6th by Nuclear Blast.)

Releasing “Your Broken Shore” in advance of My Dying Bride‘s newest album The Ghost Of Orion may be one of the shrewdest moves in music history. The “holy shit, they’re onto something with this release” comes early on during The Ghost Of Orion — during the first growled chorus of “Your Broken Shore”. While the shifting dynamic from gothic melodrama to the oppressive heaviness that My Dying Bride conjure during that section of the song may be an easy thing to sketch out musically, denying just how hard that section hits is an exercise in futility.

It’s indisputable just how heavy that moment is, and it grabs you as a listener and basically holds you in place for the rest of the song — making a near-eight-minute journey fly by as the My Dying Bride crew really hammer home why they’ve had a career as long as they’ve had and how they’ve maintained the miserable engine that has kept them going.

It’s also something of a revelation, in that “Your Broken Shore” is so strong a song that you almost wouldn’t believe you’ve got another fifty-or-so minutes of music to dive into after it. You could even say that My Dying Bride started The Ghost Of Orion with a show-stopper — if the band hadn’t left other weapons laying around in The Ghost Of Orion‘s track list. Continue reading »

“A LAKE OF GHOSTS” AND A LEXICANUM OF DOOM

Metal News 1 Response »

Mar 272017

In this post we’ve collected two pieces of news that should be appealing to addicts of doom, one of which involves our doom-devoted interviewer, Comrade Aleks.

“A LAKE OF GHOSTS: THE LONG SHADOW OF MY DYING BRIDE”

The first piece of news concerns a devotion to the ground-breaking English doom band My Dying Bride. Specifically, Doom-metal.com has organized a compilation of MDB tracks as performed by an array of other bands. As explained by Doom-metal:

“We set out to make an album that would do justice to one of the most influential of all Doom bands, not by sticking within the Gothic/Death/Doom boundaries that My Dying Bride defined and made their own, but by inviting those from further afield in the Doom genres who found MDB just as vital in shaping their own paths. And we asked them to create their own versions of a song that would both demonstrate the influence and portray their own individual style, to show just how far the long shadow has been cast.” Continue reading »

KEVINP’S ALBUMS OF THE MONTH — SEPTEMBER 2015

Listmania 10 Responses »

Sep 282015

(Here’s the latest installment of KevinP’s series in which he runs down his list of the best releases from the preceding month.)

I screwed up last month. And not just a minor oversight, but in a fairly big way. It wasn’t until after August’s column was posted that fellow contributor/friend Dan Barkasi messaged me that he was surprised I didn’t have Wolfheart on my list. My response was, “the album comes out in September”. Then I checked and realized I was wrong. URGH. I’m gonna assign partial blame to Mr. Saukkonen though, since he sent me a copy of the album many months in advance and mentioned September as the release date. Assuming his infallibility (based on his musical pedigree), I never bothered to double-check and learn that the label would change it.

So how do I address this grave misdeed? I was going to include it as part of this month’s Top 5, but that really wouldn’t make sense or be fair to the other releases. I’ll simply say this: Shadow World eclipses the debut. It’s another masterstroke in the arsenal of Tuomas the Finnish Freeballer who simply seems to be able to mine the same well and keep extracting new and exciting sounds from it. Would it have been the Number 1 album last month? It certainly would have been a toss-up between that and Majestic Downfall. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: ANDREW CRAIGHAN (MY DYING BRIDE)

Interviews 4 Responses »

Sep 082015

(KevinP brings us another installment of his short-interview series, and this time he talks with Andrew Craighan, co-founder/guitarist/composer of My Dying Bride, whose new album Feel the Misery is set for release by Peaceville Records on September 18 — and reviewed here on our site.)

K: One of the things that struck me last time we spoke (right after A Line of Deathless Kings was released in 2006) was how you would write all the music, then give it to Aaron, and he would lock himself away for a week or so with some wine and candles and just spit forth all the lyrics. He wasn’t privy to hearing the music beforehand. Has anything fundamentally changed in that regard over the years?

A: It was more or less the same on this one. I wrote at home and would send out odd and sods when I thought I had something of use. The band, Aaron included, would get used to them or learn the riffs in anticipation of needing to play it later. The full songs were then arranged again alone by me initially. Then, when in a playable state, we would rehearse them live at Voltage and re-arrange or write anything new there that fit or was needed. Again, completely developed without any vocals or lyrics by everyone in the band but Aaron. He doesn’t ever come to those parts of the process but has “demo” versions sent to him. What he does with them no one knows as he always seems “surprised by music” at the studio and on this one I got a bit more involved on the vocal melodies too, which was cool. Continue reading »

MY DYING BRIDE: “FEEL THE MISERY”

Album Reviews 8 Responses »

Aug 242015

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by My Dying Bride.)

Type-O Negative might have gotten bigger with their more Goth-infused brand of doom in the ’90s, but My Dying Bride brought the dismal darkness in a heavier and more mournful fashion. They started off with more death metal in the mix and evolved from there. This album is another step.

Aaron Stainthorpe’s voice is the only trademark of the band in the opener until it slows down at the two-and-half-minute mark. The violin feels a tad toned-down in the mix. Each song becomes a little more identifiable as the death metal vocals return on the second song. They are layered atop an up-beat metal gallop that slows into the dirges they are known for. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: CALVIN ROBERTSHAW (MY DYING BRIDE)

Interviews 1 Response »

May 142015

(KevinP brings us this “Get To the Point” interview with Calvin Robertshaw, guitarist of My Dying Bride, who have a new album coming later this year.)

K: I’m not going to rehash ancient history too much. I’d rather focus on the here and now, plus the future. Buuuut, you’ve been away since 1998 and as soon as they announce Hamish’s departure, they announce your return. I gotta assume you’ve kept in touch over the years or had previous talks of rejoining the fold?

C: Yes, after leaving, I stepped away from music completely for a couple of years before they approached me and asked me to tour manage. That lasted for 3-4 years before the birth of my son. We’ve always kept in touch since then. I’ve been with Andy’s sister for 17 years.

Andy initially approached me in 2013 about the possibility of filling in for Hamish at a couple of shows. But nothing ever came of that, until mid 2014, when I was asked about rejoining full time. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2015: DAY TWO

Concert Reviews 5 Responses »

Apr 092015

(Andy Synn reports on the second day of Oslo’s Inferno Festival 2015 and provides photos. For Andy’s report on the pre-fest show last Wednesday, go here, and his report on Day One is at this location.)

If there’s a better way to kick off another day at one of the world’s best metal festivals than by seeing Goatwhore, I’d like to hear it. Big riffs, big spikes, big attitude, the band positively ooze confidence and bleed metal, smashing through their set with almost reckless abandon.

Bassist James Harvey had a bit of a rough night, truth be told, early songs rendering his bass-lines as little more than a barely audible rumble, while snapping a string part way through the set forced the band to play a few songs without him entirely. Still, they persevered like the stalwart soldiers of Satan that they are, and on his eventual return Harvey’s lurching low-end was much more prominent. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEATH GRIPS DROPS A NEW ALBUM, ZETRO SOUZA RETURNS TO EXODUS, HAMISH GLENCROSS LEAVES MY DYING BRIDE, AND HOUR OF PENANCE FALLS OFF THE CONQUERORS OF THE WORLD TOUR

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Jun 092014

Here are four startling new events that happened over the weekend.

DEATH GRIPS

Death Grips released the first half of a new album last night. As is their want, there was no advance notice, or at least none that I saw. The name is niggas on the moon. It’s 8 tracks long, it’s streaming in full on Soundcloud and YouTube, and it’s free to download. And all 8 songs feature Björk. Seriously.

The band’s announcement says this 8-song release is the first half of a double album, the name of which is the powers that b. They say it will be released later this year on Harvest/Third Worlds Records.

I haven’t started listening to the music as I write this on a Sunday night, so I’ll save any thoughts about it for a later update. Or maybe someone else around here will provide some thoughts. I’m expecting weirdness.

To download the music, click this link:

http://thirdworlds.net/files/niggas-on-the-moon.zip

Stream it below. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HAMISH GLENCROSS (VALLENFYRE)

Interviews 10 Responses »

Apr 292014

(In this post, NCS contributor KevinP interviews Hamish Glencross of Vallenfyre and My Dying Bride and along the way extracts a track-by-track commentary about the new Vallenfyre album — Splinters — which is scheduled for release by Century Media on May 12 in Europe and May 13 in North America.)

K: Ok, let’s get something clear right from the start. How close were you to convincing Gregor to change the name of the band to VallenPorn ‘stache??

H: Heh heh! Well, I wanted to keep the focus off the facial hair as much as possible as I could tell it would be a distraction, so I thought better of it. I was a little concerned people would think my dad had joined the band!

K: LOL, fair point. Papa Glencross. If I may ask, whats the genesis behind that thing in the first place?

H: Simply my daughter wanted me to grow a ‘stache. And if that’s the worst thing she’ll ever ask of me, I’d be doing ok. Continue reading »

THE LENA ABÉ STORY: BOLLOCKS-FREE EDITION (An NCS Interview)

Interviews No Responses »

Aug 212013

(NCS guest writer and hard man to please KevinP wrangled the following interview with Lena Abé, bass-player for legendary UK doom squad My Dying Bride and guitarist for Severed Heaven.)

K: So you joined My Dying Bride in 2007, but were a relatively unknown name at the time. Give us some back-story before entering the fray?

L: I started playing guitar when I was ten years old. Usual story really, joined bands throughout high school, became involved within the metal scene, and eventually joined My Dying Bride. Music is in my family, so I was always going to do something along those lines.

K: Are you a native/lifelong Brit?

L: Mostly yes. I’m half Japanese and half British. Born in Tokyo, but my family moved to the UK when I was still a baby. I was brought up in Yorkshire and definitely have the accent to prove it.

K: So growing up, when did you first hear about My Dying Bride?

L: I can’t remember exactly. I remember friends’ older siblings being into them when I was a kid and I remember seeing the band in magazines like Kerrang and Terrorizer, old school MTV as well. It was eye-opening because it was the first time I had heard “doom”. I really got into them around the Songs of Darkness, Words of Light era (2004-ish) and saw them live. That changed it for me and I then explored the rest of their catalogue.

K: Were you already into death metal/extreme music by that time?

L: Not fully, but I was half-way there if that makes sense. Continue reading »

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