Artist: My Dying Bride
Label: Peaceville Records
Release Date: 11/13/00
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Title: The Dreadful Hours Artist: My Dying Bride Label: Peaceville Records Release Date: 11/13/00 |
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Abyss's Review:
I must say, I was pleased when I first gazed upon this band’s new album cover. I was happy to see that the old logo remained, previewing an album that is classic My Dying Bride. This band’s combination of Gothic charm and sorrowful death is nothing new, but I still find it a breath of fresh (like a corpse) air. While many saw their last album, The Light at the End of the World, as regression, I saw it as a return to form. Sure, the experimentation of a few years back was abandoned for a more comfortable sound (for these guys, anyway), but their original sound is what got me interested in this band in the first place, and when they strayed from their heavier roots, it left an empty space in modern metal. Let’s face it, no one else puts out stuff like this of this quality. Call me Oliver Twisted, because every time I hear one of their albums I say, ‘Please, sir, can I have some more?’ in a pathetic cockney accent.
"No one else puts out stuff like this of this quality."
This is not to say that this band has stagnated, however. Rather than growing in leaps and bounds, they refine an already potent sound, which (as long as it’s done well) can be just as challenging as losing your heaviness for the sake of “musical growth”. This, like all of their albums, is to be taken as a whole, thought of as one long listen. One should hit play, relax, take some barbiturates, and melt into the sound. Where this album really grabs me though, is that amongst all of the atmosphere, there are a few stand out tracks, something I usually don’t equate with this band. All of the songs are really good, but a few stand out well on their own. Hell, if I still had a cassette deck, I’d throw these songs on a mix tape.
"Every time it seems I’m jonesing for them to switch styles, they oblige, making this exactly what I was looking for." There is a great mix of clean and harsh vocals on this record. Every time it seems I’m jonesing for them to switch styles, they oblige, making this exactly what I was looking for. The guitars produce a thick wail to complement the vocals, and the dynamics between the plodding low end and the melodic high points are very satisfying. Even though the bride is dead, the honeymoon isn’t over.
Death's Review:
"Haunting" is the only word that can accurately describe the mood set from the outset of The Dreadful Hours, a bleak, reflective Pink Floydian landscape which conveys the proverbial "calm before the storm" quite perfectly. In fact, the listener is never quite sure of just the type of album The Dreadful Hours is going to be until the 2:30 mark of the 9:00+ opening title track, when the crashing doom guitars enter. Unfortunately, it is where the atonal whiny vocals enter as well, exactly the kind of 1980's college "alternative" type of vocals that I've shied away from for oh so long. Of course, very quickly do My Dying Bride veer sharply away from those vocals and into something a bit thrashier and certainly a bit more black. Yes, there are blackened drum rolls and loads of double-bass, there are keys and there is screaming. Many will perceive this as the perfect balance for My Dying Bride-at one moment Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", the other Dimmu Borgir. Some will call it diverse; others, schizophrenic.
"Some will call it diverse; others, schizophrenic."
Track 2, "The Raven and the Rose" opens with a stomping death metal promise, albeit a promise soaked in keys. But the riff is very heavy and kinda cool, simple yet filled with groove like one might find in a Morbid Angel tune. The song doesn't stay that way, engaging in many twists and turns throughout the 8:00+ journey on its way back to the riff time and again. In fact, the overall length of The Dreadful Hours is worth noting: of the album's eight tracks, none of them clock in at under 5:30 and the second shortest is 6:45 in length. These are not quick pop ditties, these are morose epic cries for help.
"You know there is serious artistry going on here, and that this is a deep, somber work. But overall, it is too whiny and too plodding to rate extremely high on my list." Track 4, "Black Heart Romance," begins with a raw, Hendrix-style guitar tone which quickly morphs into doomy, Sabbathian territory. Of course, here the vocals are their most abrasive, sounding like a cross between a more nasal Roger Waters from Pink Floyd's The Wall and the Cure's Robert Smith, with Amorphis or Opeth -style clean guitar noodling passages inserted between verses. At the 2:00 mark, a King Diamond/movie soundtrack -like dramatic interlude interrupts the flow, yet serves as a precursor to one of the album's most interesting moments, the heavy Sabbath-like death growl vocals over pentatonic scale single note doom riffing. By 3:45 we get a blackened vocal thrown in which just absolutely sounds great.
For me, the entire record is like this: you know there is serious artistry going on here, and that this is a deep, somber work. But overall, it is too whiny and too plodding to rate extremely high on my list. My Dying Bride fans should surely be pleased. Me, I can't decide how I feel. I know it is a "good album" which should bring joy to many metalheads, but in the end, this just isn't really my thing.
Hel's Review:
Favorite track: "Return to the Beautiful"Are you prepared to embark on a journey? A journey taking you through dark places where unknown things lurk in shadowy corners awaiting the unwary? If you dare, the time is now, and My Dying Bride will be your guide. I find myself using the word "epic" in my descriptions often, but rarely is it as appropriate as in this case.
My Dying Bride has long put out albums filled with bleakness, despair, and other enticingly dark wonders. Theirs is a spell to which you must willing succumb in order to fully explore the depths of their music. At the intersection where doom, goth, black, and death converge - this is where your journey begins.
While all the songs of The Dreadful Hours share a similar mood and tone, little else is the same musically. After several listens, I am only now truly beginning to appreciate the depth and complexity of this newest offering. Regardless of how long I spend with it, I am confident that my favorite song on the album will remain "Return to the Beautiful" - a re-make of "The Return of the Beautiful" - worth the price of the record, in and of itself.
"After several listens, I am only now truly beginning to appreciate the depth and complexity of this newest offering. " A journey, this truly is, but moreover, it is also a story. In the days before written language, tales were passed from generation to generation in the oral tradition, a practice which has long ago been abandoned, but one from which music itself may arguably have risen. I believe that the best musicians continue this tradition in our time, and few bands utilize both voice and instrument to this end as well as My Dying Bride.
While there may be no concept which ties these songs together (lacking lyrics and sufficient time, I cannot either confirm nor deny the existence of such), there can be no doubt that to fully immerse yourself in the experience is to ensure yourself over an hour and ten minutes of entertainment. If you wish to venture far beyond the cookie-cutter music on the radio, into a realm of mood and mist, journey into The Dreadful Hours.
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