For Darkest Eyes

I would never have expected My Dying Bride to come across that well live, but For Darkest Eyes proves otherwise and sees the crowd really getting into it, proving that the English six-piece are not only a headphones and poetry outfit. Medieval, mournful doom metal is the order of the day, sounding great on the audio and also transferring some of the rage and aggression that gets lost when I'm listening alone in my bedroom. This DVD (I'm reviewing the 2005 Peaceville version with the lady on the front) has provided me with my only opportunity to date of seeing MDB play live and at over three hours really offers the ideal visual document of the early part of the band's career.

The main reason you should be interested in For Darkest Eyes is the excellent 70 minute Polish show. Despite being slightly upset about the song selection strongly favouring Turn Loose the Swans and The Angel and the Dark River over the intriguing earlier material, practically everything else about the gig is perfect. I don't say that lightly, since I'm taking into account the quality of the performance, the skill of the musicians, the audience response, and the sound, which is phenomenal for such a gig, though leads me to believe it may have been touched up slightly. In any case, the volume and clarity of the guitars are spot on, hulking up at the front of the sound when playing slowly and inspiring crazy moshing any time the group step on the gas, as they do several times, most conspicuously for 'The Songless Bird', 'Your Shameless Heaven', and the predictably nuts death metal closer 'The Forever People'. MDB have a great deal of slower material too, during which the charisma of Aaron Stainthorpe becomes more necessary, splaying himself backwards like Jesus for 'The Cry of Mankind' and holding the audience rapt during the extended quiet section of 'The Crown of Sympathy'. I've never heard a crowd cheer harder for a 10 minute slow song that includes a long ambient break. It is worth noting that Bride don't alter any of the songs they play, preferring to stick close to the studio recordings and cutting the length on occasion. While some might feel let down by the lack of surprises, the group have never been about showmanship over emotion and that seems to ring true here.

The original video of For Darkest Eyes also included the band's music videos up to that date, which constitute six songs, all of which were abridged for the single version. The early clips show a band lacking a budget but running high on creativity, making use of all kinds of odd recording techniques and splicing distorted footage of the band and other atmospheric bits and pieces with montages of old illustrations, symbols, scenery, and even pages from a Greek book. Say what you like about the replay value of such clips: I feel like they perfectly set off the esoteric morbidity of songs like 'Symphonaire Infernus' (abridged title for this edition) and 'The Thrash of Naked Limbs', which crawls with such a heightened sense of polluted emotional tumescence that the visuals make it about twice as good as on CD. 'The Cry of Mankind' and 'For You' show a noticeably slicker production, with Aaron getting to act out his Christ fantasies in the former, though the creative touch to the productions had largely dissipated.

Now, here's where things get interesting for owners of the later DVD edition of For Darkest Eyes. The extra material here has doubled the length of the original release and gives any original owners a reason to buy it again. That's because three extra clips have been added, most conspicuously the hour long gig from Willem II in the Netherlands briefly after the release of Turn Loose the Swans, but also four songs from Dynamo Festival in 1995 and the single song 'Sear Me' from a 1992 performance in Simplon. I find it highly unlikely that any of these clips have been touched up either in visual or sound quality, largely because the earlier two shows sound quite ropey at times and because the band are obscured from view for long periods by smoke, shadow, and distance. That said, it's an absolute treat to see how the guys played in the early days. The style is similar to the main feature of For Darkest Eyes, though professionalism is not the order of the day for the 1993 Netherlands show, as Stainthorpe's vocals fail to be heard until midway through the first song, after which he checks with the audience whether or not they can hear him. A man fond of the word "cheers", by the way.

Admittedly, I'm biased towards these slightly older cuts because it scratches my itch for the heavier, more morbid material that MDB produced, which is allowed full rein in the 1993 concert, ploughing through five of the songs from the masterful Turn Loose the Swans and the title tracks of the three early EPs. Notwithstanding some squeals of feedback and a slightly noisy mix, that beats the older 'Sear Me' hands down, since the Simplon concert had the drums up way louder and the band clearly not favoured by the venue. For a live video, one may also consider it problematic that the band is not seen very obviously during the show, the stage mostly staying either backlight or dark, though it does rather suit the style; Stainthorpe's nonchalant stage banter, not so much. The 1995 Dynamo show is understandably possessed of higher quality sound and sees the band mostly interested in promoting The Angel and the Dark River, even showing some small degree of improvisation with the opening of 'The Cry of Mankind'. However, it falls somewhere between the feel of the well-managed Krakow show and the raw performance on the other long clip.

A few extras knock around on For Darkest Eyes, such as a picture gallery, though you're buying this for the shows mostly, since the music videos are easy to find online. I'd say that most fans of MDB could get some mileage from each of the two main features, especially those interested in the heavier roots of the band, but those expecting the songs to sound vastly different from the studio recordings may well be disappointed. As DVDs go, this isn't exactly a visual extravaganza, though you're certainly getting two opposite sides of Bride for your money, first the scripted triumph of the Krakow gig and then the grim obscurity of the Willem show - the wedding and then the funeral.