My Dying Bride - The Dreadful Hours
Peaceville Records - 2001
By Philip Whitehouse
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Since their formation in the June of 1990, My Dying Bride have consistently released challenging albums which, to my mind, have never been less than completely satisfying. Even the electronically-influenced music and shorter, pop-like compositions on the less critically-well-received 34.7888% Complete album came across to me as successgul chapters in the story of a band that has never been afraid to experiment.
Last album, The Light At The End Of The World, returned from 34.7888... 's style to the epic death/doom metal style that has been My Dying Bride's main province since their inception, and latest release The Dreadful Hours continues in this vein. Some have been describing it as a modern 'Turn Loose The Swans' (arguably MDB's best album), and that's pretty much what it sounds like to me.
As on TLATEOTW, Aaron Stainthorpe mixes his usual morose style of singing with a more typically death-metal growling, which manages to widen the emotional range of the songs from just melancholy to to touch bitterness and anger also. In fact, to my mind this has always been MDB's greatest success - the fact that they can create such emotion with their songs. The mood most typically reached is that of a broken man, lamenting his lost chances and failures, bitter about choices he could have made differently, angry at his wasted life but resigned to its consequences. This comes as something of a welcome break to someone who, like myself, has been constantly absorbed in the mournful nursing of spiritual wounds endorsed by bands such as Katatonia recently.
Opening title track starts with a genuinely haunting (if somewhat over-long intro) consisting of the sounds of a thunderstorm (very doomy) beneath a simple, echoey/reverbed clean guitar piece and piano melody. After a while, the band come crashing in with full metallic intent. The song then segues effortlessly between the two feels - morose and haunting, punishing and brutal.
The complex piano and violin arrangements to be found in earlier My Dying Bride releases are now a thing of the past, leaving the music focussed far more on the guitars. This is by no means a bad thing, as the heavy riffs are rib-crushingly effective while the melodic sections are painfully haunting and emotional in tone.
Another thing MDB have left in the past is the aforementioned short compositions of 34.7888% Complete - with only eight songs on the album, the total length of the disc clocks in at over seventy minutes. Far from making the songs overlong and tedious, this gives MDB more time to fully develop the atmosphere and emotion that gives their songs such impact and makes them stand out as brilliant examples of their style.
Overall, this is a truly fantastic release from a band who have never really disappointed. Buy it right away!
10/10
