A Mortal Binding

Blowjobs...not really what My Dying Bride have been famous for over the last 34 years. Romance maybe, erotica possibly, but not something as simple as sucking dicks. And yet their 14th (proper) album begins with the line "Her throat labours at the work of felate", and it's also the song's subtitle in case you miss it. Considering the last album had a lot of themes about Aaron Stainthorpe's daughter and her struggle with illness, I wasn't expecting that. He still tries to make it sound like poetry, making the phrase carry a verb where I'd have thought a noun more comfortable, but the gurgly effect on that ultra-emphasized first line just makes it kind of funny, especially the pitch-shifted slide into the main riff that sort of sounds like Stainthorpe is swallowing...swallowing what, I'm not going to speculate. No, I didn't think I'd write the first paragraph about blowies either, but here we are.

That's not the only surprise on this release, which has been pretty well-received in the last couple of months. For Bride, A Mortal Binding seems particularly concise and to-the-point, not least the start of the album, which gets 4 songs done in comfortably less than half an hour. The style itself follows the same trend as the timing, the slightly new-look sextet (Neil Blanchett makes his first album appearance on guitar) banging out riffs and getting on with business until the album concludes in a pretty neat 55 minutes. Of course, anyone familiar with MDB will know that the English crew are more renowned for sloth, experiments, and atmosphere than absolute heaviness in the doom death realm, their more direct releases usually less praised, such as Like Gods of the Sun or A Line of Deathless Kings. As such, the pointedness at the start and end of this album, as well as some focused riffing in the middle, makes the experience feel more energetic and active, despite the pace mainly staying in normal leaden realms.

A Mortal Binding also feels more like an album the band has worked on together, with no single element dominating the listen. When the percussive power meets the guitars, such as during the choppy sections of 'Her Dominion' and 'Unthroned Creed', I'm forced to lurch along with the band; however, on the quiet opening of 'The Apocalyptist' following the latter track, the music soothes with clean guitar and the melancholic strain of violin, which also emphasizes the swooning gothic side of 'Thornwyck Hymn'. As the obvious epic of the bunch at 11 minutes, 'The Apocalyptist' reminds most of the contrasts used in the early days of Bride, cycling through violin, bloody-mouthed death growls, squealing harmonics, and then a smooth interlude of bass and clean picking before funnelling out into steadier verse action. It has a slightly different feel to other songs by the band, though the techniques remind me strongly of the group's first 5 years, in a similar manner to the longer cuts on The Ghost of Orion, which sonically is not far off either. Those currently pleased with Paradise Lost will certainly like this material, while we are at the heavier end of melodic doom death, making this as much of a match for Isole and maybe Hooded Menace as it is for the typical Novembers Doom and Draconian fans. I've said this before, however; if you like any of those bands and don't know My Dying Bride, you have your priorities all wrong.

While I agree in general with the positive reactions to this release, I'm not absolutely sold on the fact that all the songs remain captivating from start to finish. Perhaps that's a mark of how confused and busy my mind has been this year, but I haven't been gripped by A Mortal Binding for an entire listen as yet. Granted, I don't hear too many moments of downtime or the typical "where is this going?" tendency that Bride show sometimes, more that some moments just continue kind of flat for a bit long. For instance, 'A Starving Heart' does that in its second half despite all the drum fills and crunchy bass presence, then picks up for the curiously nasal vocal and great chorus riff that I believe to be the finest hook in the album. On the other hand, that may just be a question of consistency, which rarely exists in the band's catalogue. In terms of highlights, I absolutely have to mention the palm-muted riffing in 'Unthroned Creed' since it sounds amazing with the harmonized clean vocals, plus the concluding 'Crushed Embers' weights itself very well in terms of balancing drama and emotion with more climactic moments of heaviness.

In conclusion, I'm still impressed by Bride's ability to keep renewing their sound without deviating that far from the key points they have developed over the years, and A Mortal Binding should satisfy pretty much everyone in that regard. It hasn't yet grown on me to the extent that I can claim it as better than the previous few (very strong) releases, though it probably sits in my top 10 for 2024 at this point. But that's a short list right now, and I could see it heading in both directions. Slowly rising and also going down...why does that remind me of blowjobs?

My Dying Bride are known to be masters of doom metal and I do agree that they are really good, even after 30+ years of creating this kind of music. They are still creative, still coming up with great ideas. This doesn't mean I like everything they've done, but what about the new album?

“A Mortal Binding” follows the released in 2020 “Ghost of Orion” which has a really elegant sound, harkening back to 2012’s “A Map Of All Our Failures”. Their previous release was poetic, balanced and… tame. Very good though, but you could hear the struggle, especially in Aaron’s vocals, which he said himself in one of the interviews: his heart wasn’t into it.

The new album sounds different from the previous one. The sound is bigger, more lush. What is particularly striking is the sound of the bass guitar. It’s crunchy, audible throughout the album, it’s just a joy to hear it so prominently. The guitar work by Andrew, the main composer is on a very high level. Part of the essence of My Dying Bride is the huge, ancient sounding guitar, the soaring riffs, the melodies. For me, Andrew with his playing is a pillar of this band and he did an amazing job on this album.

I said previously that on the previous album Aaron’s vocals were not the best. On the new release he sounds very good, you can hear the emotion in his voice. There are more growls on this one and they sound very good. The album contains some beautiful violin moments, there are also some sparse keyboard melodies. I cannot say much about percussion because I don’t pay a lot of attention to it when it comes to this band, it’s just there.

The album has a really strong composition. It’s not boring, even on multiple listens, it even grows on the listener. This was not always the case, some of their albums had moments of less inspiration, of forced compositions and boring moments. This one is almost flawless. There is maybe one track that is mediocre to me, the rest is absolutely killer. I particularly like the eleven-minute plus behemoth of a song: “The Apocalyptist”. It’s an amazing composition that is reminiscent of some of their older classics like “The Return to the Beautiful”. It’s tragic, it’s poetic, it’s ugly. It’s all the good stuff that makes them who they are. Another favorite of mine is “Crushed Embers” which closes the album. This is a perfect My Dying Bride song and the ending is just well… crushing.

Discussing the last track I think it is time to mention the lyrics. They are an important part of this band. Aaron is no usual lyricist, he is famous for his inspirations in poetry. He is very good in using language, it was true from the beginning of the band. His inspired, sometimes passionate, sometimes tragic stories are another very important pillar of the band. That is not to say that his lyrics are always good, if you know this band you know that sometimes the lyrics are so theatrical and pathetic that it borders on being funny and exaggerated. On this album however the lyrics are very strong! They are just on point, elegant and poetic. They don’t seem forced at all, his storytelling seems to be honest and natural. It’s just so joyful to hear because this makes this weird, weird band go on. The Bride is still dying and it’s doing so with class!

The ending of “Crushed Embers”: “I faded from my bloodline and took leave of humanity”, the part from “The Apocalyptist” that brings back memories of “Turn Loose the Swans”: “I cannot hold on forever, I can’t even lend you my wings”. Some of the lyrics here are just beautiful and again, a joy to listen to. I could go on about the lyrics and about the motifs that connect this release to their previous ones and make this band a real phenomenon, I could go on about The Bride and what it potentially means but this is no place for this.

It seems to me that the band reached a similar level of cohesion as on the 2012’s “A Map Of All Our Failures”. They sound very good together, it seems to me as if they know what they are doing, they know who they are as musicians. At this point of their career there is no need for any major experimentation with the sound, they know what to do and they deliver a masterfully crafted work that will stand in their catalog among their classic 90’s releases.

It’s a joy to witness this band continue on with style, it’s great to see that they gel together so well. Andrew, Aaron and the rest of the team did a great job. They created another great album that grows on the listener with time and could potentially write itself in the history as one of their best efforts. Of course they will be those that don’t dig the new production, people that don’t like the direction the band went in around “For Lies I Sire” or “A Map Of All Our Failures” era, but if you look at this album honestly, if you look at it as on a piece of art and an expression of the band’s creative spirit, it’s just amazing.

After two decades of injecting various degrees of death metal and gothic metal into their sound, My Dying Bride has pretty much been a doom metal band on their last couple of albums. Sure, the atmosphere on ‘A Mortal Binding’ can still be somewhat gothic in nature – though nowhere near as unrelentingly bleak as its predecessor ‘The Ghost of Orion’ got at times – but the slow, mournful guitar riffs have been the focal point of My Dying Bride’s recent albums. Which is a good thing, because that is clearly their biggest strength and does not deserve to be buried under layers of atmospherics.

Overall, ‘A Mortal Binding’ sounds a bit more straightforward than ‘The Ghost of Orion’. Those who were thrown off by the avant-garde touches of the latter will certainly have an easier time getting into this one. Personally, I thought ‘The Ghost of Orion’ was one of My Dying Bride’s best albums to date – possibly the best – and ‘A Mortal Binding’ does not quite live up to it, but some of the better elements fortunately have stayed. Guitarists Andrew Craighan and Neil Blanchett being front and center both compositionally and sonically is one, the fact that Aaron Stainthorpe sings better than he ever has is another.

Still, ‘A Mortal Binding’ and I originally got off on the wrong foot. There is one simple reason for that: I really, really don’t like opening track ‘Her Dominion’. It is the worst track of the album by a significant margin and therefore, an odd choice to open the album with. The riffs, while decent enough on their own, don’t seem to connect up all that well and Stainthorpe’s growls in the minimalistic verses sound forced and tired. That last thing is surprising, because his growls sounds commanding and borderline scary in the excellent doom monster ‘The Apocalyptist’ later on.

Fortunately, the album gets better after its somewhat awkward opening minutes. ‘The 2nd of Three Bells’ , ‘A Starving Heart’ and closing track ‘Crushed Embers’ are excellent examples of the mournful doom metal My Dying Bride is known for, with the extremely slow riffs and dramatic guitar harmonies that were the band’s trademark early on. In fact, a few of these songs could have been on ‘Turn Loose the Swans’ if Mark Mynett’s mixing job did not make them so obviously contemporary. An additional benefit of that is that listeners can actually hear how complemenetary Lena Abé’s excellent bass playing is. The denser ‘Unthroned Creed’ brings ‘A Line of Deathless Kings’ to mind.

The worst thing I could say about ‘A Mortal Binding’ is that it is another My Dying Bride album. However, the niche they have carved for themselves in recent years is – in my opinion, at least – the best representation of what My Dying Bride can be. The guitars don’t need elaborate keyboard arrangements to emphasize the dark, romantic qualities of the music – again, Shaun MacGowan provides texture first and foremost. ‘A Mortal Binding’ doesn’t quite blow me away like ‘The Ghost of Orion’ did, but its best moments are some of the greatest doom metal around these days.

Recommended tracks: ‘The Apocalyptist’, ‘Crushed Embers’, ‘The 2nd of Three Bells’

Originally written for my Kevy Metal weblog

My Dying Bride have always aimed for something substantial within the confines of doom over the course of thirteen albums (not counting Evinta, more on that later). The band exists pretty much as it started out, hammering on for nearly 35 years now, with the same unabashedly over-elucidated message that profound melancholy triumphs over all material. So as things stand, “As The Flower Withers” will remain the band’s most overly done foray into death metal; and it speaks of its time when boys were wont to outdo each other for sheer gruesomeness – when a song like “The Bitterness and The Bereavement” with questing riffs that find no resolution and lyrics that probe the opacity of divinity held us in awe (mostly for what the band would do next, but awe nonetheless). Paradise Lost and Anathema raced MDB through the park of deathly despair and those boys sure found alternative routes to gloomy success while the Bride dawdled, ruminated, lingered. But these are men now, and have been old men for a mournful minute since.

Their gradual increment of sonic sorrows got weightier with the grand leap forward that was “Turn Loose The Swans” with some proggier meat on the bones; experimental grand strokes like “The Songless Bird” and “The Crown of Sympathy” are so emblematic of the band’s larger than life dourness yet they sound like nothing else in their vast discog. My Dying Bride proved they could be true to the ethos of doom even when riffless as on “Black God” as they were on balls-out bashers like “Your River” and “The Forever People”. Around the time of their sixth album, “The Light At The End Of The World” in 1999, the band were at a sort of crossroads (retrospectively speaking). They had dried out their purchase of grief through winsome experiments and dabbled in a more goth rock aesthetic, all the while remaining largely in the audience’s imagination as “extreme metal” – and certainly one of the flagship extreme acts from the UK underground in the 90’s. Where to go from there, especially when some of their bolder creative endeavors were frowned upon by their fanbase?

To tie up this historic meandering with the new album, I’ll say that the Bride’s richest period lies in their middle era. “The Dreadful Hours” which knocks off the aughties for our fave sad Brits is a magnanimous masterpiece of realized anguish whose opener allows much room for contemplation while fitting in the headbangers and gearheads alike. The closer is a retread but in the hands of finesse, showcasing a deft balancing act of melody and aggression. Aaron Stainthorpe’s clean, agonized vocals are pitch perfect and glorious and his growls sharper and bark-like. Andrew Craighan and Hamish Glencross (he of new doom lords Godthrymm) purvey forceful melodic riffs that belie their simplicity with touches of odd rhythm and labyrinthine looping. These traits carried over to the three succeeding records with the last one, “For Lies I Sire” bearing the strain of hallmarks that were by then a tad over-utilized. So they made “Evinta” which was a marked detour, stripping down the band to their symphonic essence (which was always thin) and to Aaron’s spoken-word (which was always mere accoutrements). It now stands to serve as a turning of the page and the door into the current era.

The era in which we now prevail has seen the Bride wearier than ever. Every pronouncement is moribund and reflective. Titles like “A Map Of All Our Failures” and “Feel The Misery” contain a general sense of doom that pervades and is all-inclusive. The songs themselves present like they were assembled by elder statesmen with all the juvenilia dispensed with. “The Ghost of Orion” arrived after five years of the band dealing with personal tragedy and contemplating dissolution. The resulting songs talked in earnest about some of these situations and the musical air was measured at best, restrained at worst. “Evinta” which took itself so unbearably serious that it invoked some hilarity can now be seen as a precursor to the band’s measured outlook on doom at this present hour. The experimental nature of the band found latter recourse on fan favorite “Feel the Misery” but even then, the achievements were devoid of frivolity and catered towards heightening unease and severity (think “A Thorn Of Wisdom” and the “Iniquity of Rapture” mix of “A Cold New Curse”). “A Mortal Binding” while cementing the new era of the band’s primal gloom presents a unified stance that wraps up all the tumults and despondencies of past decades.

It is ushered in by “Her Dominion” which is a sort of urgent “Sear Me” where the titular Bride is re-introduced and repurposed as a “mother to all mankind” over a set of rousing riffs and percussion. Aaron Stainthorpe barks throughout the whole affair, sounding in rare form, while the proceedings unfurl memories of the aforementioned “Sear Me” and “The Night He Died”. MDB’s scheme of self-reference has always tapered on the subtle side and here it is downright tasteful. Each song manages to reinforce the one after it and the ones to come; the riffing evolves within its monodynamism of scale runs and deft harmonics. The melodies are hummable and there is a grand sweeping, endlessly crescendoing fashion to the transitions that induce a funereal daze. “Thornwyck Hymn” provides a brief respite as the most immediately catchy tune here with its undulating riffs and violin swings cast over a staggering groove. It is sublime and a thing of bleak beauty but its purpose as stage-setter is realized on the subsequent three tracks with “The Apocalyptist” being the jaw-dropping culmination. Where the haunted dirge of “The 2nd of Three Bells” graduates into the menacing sway of “Unthroned Creed”, “The Apocalyptist” sweeps in with historical aplomb, making mention of things that seem biblical in stance. The riffing is just as serviceable as Andrew Craighan is famous for until it turns into an epic doom riff-fest (Procession’s “To Reap Heavens Apart” opener “Conjurer” came to mind) with nimble leads to evoke a damning schema of dread. Lena Abé’s bass snakes along resolutely throughout and arches in the religious worshipful tones of “A Starving Heart” which picks up the dreadful thread and runs it through a murky needle akin to the keyhole (or anus?) of the album art. Anyway, the languid comfort of Stainthorpe’s vocals is undercut with the lyrics that disrupt any pastoral interpretations from his tone;

The land led the frightened river back to its mother sea
And witnessed from above, this work of slavery
Through its mouth, the world will drink the waters deep

That generalized feel of appreciable gloom, that is as vague as it is familiar, which the band has been offering since 2012 continues lyrically; that philosophical approach that supplanted the personal woes of olde where the women are representative figures (“mother of all mankind” and “the woman of fatalism” from “Kneel Till Doomsday”) and that overarching drive to surrender (“I’ll be your echo again” he intones on “Crushed Embers”, see also current-era dirge “Within The Presence of Absence”). There’s moments that call for self-insertion still. My Dying Bride resonate because their doom is never esoteric even when tediously Britishly romantic. Is “the apocalyptist” a figure we all carry with us? These lines give food for thought; “Against sheer hopelessness he kept on glowing/Inside our minds without us even knowing” and these while reminiscent of say, Primordial, uphold the stoicism of a Bride that is always dying but never quite dead:

Blast free of your tears
Hold the hand of your fears
Grind your altar to dust
Know your weapons are just

The week this album released, My Dying Bride were in the metal news for cancelling all touring plans for the rest of the year. No explanation was issued at first and it felt rather strange for a band with a new album to be contemplating inactivity. The door has been revolving for a while now in the new era. Hamish left first then Calvin Robertshaw rejoined and left, Jeff Singer left and Dan Mullins rejoined. The uncertain times have a way of informing the music and while the last three albums dealt in a rawer form of grief with songs about a late father and an ill child alongside wistful recollections of past affairs and hauntings, this one ferries its weight over worldwide ennui and the dread of the multitudes. It is seven songs that play like one song that could then be circled back into a loop to play forevermore. "Crushed Embers" ends abruptly but the opener "Her Dominion" picks up immediately. It is a demanding listen but it rewards with its layers of thought and emotion. The band sounds so sure, so old and established and still potent and excitable. Every instrument is finely tuned and dialed in and nothing seems to overdo the other in some joust for experimental supremacy. This is a doom metal record first and lastly and as far as My Dying Bride and the state of doom in the 2020's go, a classic.

My Dying Bride, what a pleasure it is to share some more time with you. It's has been a long time since we got together now and if I recall correctly this is our 31st year of marriage and still you are full of life. Well done for somebody almost declared dead. Of course like in a good matrimony we had our highs and lows and some average times, and the average times lasted for about ten years now. But now my dear you really have surprised me because you found you way back to the old beauty and grace you had back thirty years ago.

Of course you aren't super-melancholic like on The Angel And The Dark River and not that rough like on Turn Loose The Swans or As The Flower Withers but both character traits I fell in love with back then are clearly here to be found again. Gone are the lukewarm tunes and the moments when I thought you were an old lady sitting on the couch and doing some crochet work. Now I can feel the fire burning in you again, longing for something you didn't have in years.

A song like the opener 'Her Dominion' is such a great start to fall in love again. Deep growls and doomy, bitter sweet guitar riffs and the whirring guitar combined with a sad violin puts me in the right mood. This is what hasn't been done for many many years, I would say not since the late 90s. Aarons vocals sound not as deep as on their first two albums (and the previous EPs) but quite close to that. Maybe a little bit more as if he was puking out all the emotions he must have to let out. My Dying Bride don't only choose the death-doom way on A Mortal Binding but also the more tragic path they did (like I said) on The Angel And The Dark River. Clear, heart-breaking vocals like in 'Thornwyck Hymn' and again the typical My Dying Bride guitars and violin show some ambivalence between (metaphorically described) falling into a deep sad valley of tears and standing on a hill and watching the sun rise.

Another throwback to their early days is the longest track 'The Apocalyptist' with its monumental 11:22 running time. Again there is not that much clean singing, only growls and a lot of distorted guitars and like in the opener, the drumming is really brutal. I mean, there is no double-bass but they come over very powerful und pummeling. I wonder if these songs are some leftovers from the past, they would have fit perfect on their older works. 'Unthroned Creed' shows another facet on 'Her Dominion'. This one is full of restlessness and uneasiness because of the highly repetitive guitars at the beginning so that you feel very uncomfortable while listening to it. Only when the keyboards start you have some time to calm down but when Aaron starts whispering “with an arrow through its breast…” you feel this uneasiness again.

Well, my dear bride, I don't want to reveal all the beauty you have to offer. I want that the other people to also find out about your renaissance and agree to my words maybe. After some doubts that our relationship will last for many years in the past, I now hope that we share many more years together in love. Or to speak with good ol' Shakespeare in his sonnet 116:

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.”

Rating: 9 out of 10

Originally written for metalbite.com