Songs of Darkness, Words of Light

When a prospective explorer of any metal genre searches for the best albums within a niche, they look for certain markers. If anyone happened to be looking for a more traditional doom album with elements of gothic atmosphere and death metal aggression (and melodic riffage), they would do well to give this recording a listen. This is an album of great depth, and after listening to the album three and a half times now, I think I can at least grasp at what it accomplishes. Anyone searching for anything resembling a standard doom metal album would expect a few things, and I think this one not delivers, but delivers with perfection. Perfection? You ask with justified skepticism. Yes, I think so.

I'm hesitant to call any fifty-nine minute album "concise", but in doom metal terms this record very much is. This album conveys a message - and emotion - and then departs from us, which is why I've listened to it on repeat for a while now. None of the songs are so long that they wear out their welcome, and even the first track (the longest among them) has enough variance in composition to avoid this.

No one listens to a doom metal album (especially one from an artist called 'My Dying Bride', on the album 'Songs of Darkness, Words of Light') expecting it to be anything but ultra somber in terms of lyrical craftsmanship. While I've heard among some that such ultra-seriousness can detract from the music, here it is delivered with enough quality that we can suspend our disbelief and find it instead immersive.

We also have all of the winning compositional elements for a quality doom metal album. Inexorable riffs? All of the tracks house these. Pent up aggression and release? I'd recommend 'The Scarlet Garden' for this. Musical variance and soft passages that maintain a melody? Clearly embodied in the opening track and beyond, though perhaps most apparent in my personal favorite track, 'A Doomed Lover'. Palpable sorrow and emotional sincerity in the vocals? Look no further.

This album was a fortunate find for me, and if you enjoy doom metal at all, I think this is at least worth a cursory glance.