Songs of Darkness, Words of Light

My Dying Bride's album "Songs of Darkness and Words of Light" is definitely one of the band's finest albums. An album filled with great instrumentation, vocals, and songs this album will leave you shocked upon listening. Eight songs make up this album and all eight of them have their own memorable moments which is a breath of fresh air when listening to an album, knowing that at any moment you can be taken completely by surprise and not have the ability to predict what will happen next.

I remember when i first listened to this album. I was first getting into the band (this was actually the first My Dying Bride album I bought in full). I began listening and was absolutely floored by the music. I remember listening to the song "Catherine Blake" and just being so happy with music and the song remains my favorite MDB song. Another great song is "My Wine In Silence" which reminds me a bit of "For My Fallen Angel" because of it's subtle beginning, but towards the end it changes and adds growled vocals something that "Like Gods of the Sun" was missing. The last song that we will discuss is the final track of the album "A Doomed Lover". It's a song filled with the signature monotonous and sorrow-filled vocals, with some eerie keyboards thrown in. The instruments do not do anything too flashy, they just create the mood of absolute depression.

The playing on this album is done very well. The guitars have a lot of power to them, and the drums are played pretty powerfully and follow the beats and set the tone in the heavy and light sections. The keyboards are also a strong plus on this album, trying to fill the void that was left with no violin, which would have made this album absolutely perfect. The vocals are the typical affair, but something about them on this album makes them so special and I will go on to say that this is probably Aaron's best performance in the band's history.

Closing this review I will say that MDB's "SODAWOL" is one of the best albums created by the band. If you want a place to start like I did, then you can absolutely start here. It's the perfect album to get the gist of the MDB sound. If you like gothic, or doom metal, then you really need to hear this album.