My Dying Bride

The Angel And The Dark River (1995)

On their third album My Dying Bride shifted their focus somewhat away from being a pure Death/Doom Metal band and stripped away many of the harsher elements heard on their previous albums. The music itself is more consonant, but otherwise the sense of gloom and melancholy is unchanged. Elements from the Gothic Rock and Post-Punk of the 1980s can now be heard, especially in terms of atmosphere/mood and song-writing style. Potential influences for this would be bands such as The Cure, Swans, Nick Cave, and Dead Can Dance that had a focus on writing atmospheric based rock music with a dark sense of Romanticism.

On top of this, like their compatriots Paradise Lost and Anathema, My Dying Bride were highly aware of the scenes that had fast evolved outside of Metal, such as Shoegaze and other genres of post-Rock that aimed to create atmosphere by building layers of sound, where at times the music feels like it is developing vertically, rather than horizontally, due to the progressive addition of new melodies over an slowly changing or unchanging melodic / rhythmic idea. With these kinds of ideas the listener is made to feel as if they are part of a collage of sound developing in real-time. Tension is built by the accumulation of the addition of new voices in the music, much like how cumulatively adding new people to a room eventually creates a more vocal crowd. 

My Dying Bride are able to successfully execute these ideas with the use of additional instrumentation such as the violin and various synth sounds (including the organ). There are also plenty of sections within these songs that are closer to the traditional format of Metal music, with sequences of riffs linked together.  These parts are more often used to build a sense of anxiety or desperation,  but also by end of the album to display a sense of power (more on that below). The use of the synth/organ and the violin assists in creating sombre orchestrated songs that as aforementioned are mostly devoid of the previous Death Metal influence. The violin especially gives off an autumnal vibe, almost like the cries of a fallen majesty in its last throes, or the remnants of an England of yore, relegated sadly to a place only found in history. All that is left are the dark, gloomy and dreary landscapes.

The Metal aesthetic comes mainly from the Black Sabbath influenced Traditional Doom of the 1980s, such as Saint Vitus, Candlemass, Trouble etc.  The vocals are excellent throughout and adapt with the theme or mood of the music. At times he sounds vulnerable and full of sorrow and/or dread, and at other times when the music has a sharper, more aggressive edge he becomes more dominant and threatening, and even occasionally psychotic like a dark angel commanding wrath upon his victims (which does fit in with the spiritual themes found in some of the lyrics). Without a doubt the content of this album was an intensely personal affair for the band and the vocals are a pivotal aspect of this being conveyed.

There is a certain emotional complexity to this album – it is intensely personal, maybe sentimental at times, but of a deep existential nature. The songs are of loss, of dying, agony and pain, depression and loneliness and are an embrace with futility; but there is also by the end a sense of overcoming (especially the last two songs). See the fiery palm-muted speed metal riff that runs through most of the closing track Your Shameful Heaven), it is almost as if a new fire is burning and with it the return of the indomitable will of life to again do clash against the inevitability of the void. Alternatively this transition could be seen as going from receiver of pain to bringer of pain or otherwise a theme of retribution.