My Dying Bride
Like Gods of the Sun

When I bought this album, I was convinced I had yet another masterpiece from the Dying Bride in my hands, surely one of the bands that has contributed most to making the Doom scene of recent years truly noteworthy. How can one forget immense masterpieces like "Turn Loose the Swans" or "The Angel and the Dark River"? After discovering and venerating them, I plunged headlong into the entire discography of the band in question and gradually purchased other excellent works like "Songs of Darkness, Words of Light" and "The Dreadful Hours" and other albums that, while not outstanding, proved interesting due to experimentation or a different sound ("34.788... Complete" and "The Light at the End of the World").

And then there is this "Like Gods of the Sun."

An album with a dark and almost enigmatic cover but beyond that it has absolutely nothing worthwhile to say. Of course, I did not expect this when I put it in the CD player, very satisfied with my new purchase. At first, I let myself be enchanted by the dark riffs of the title track and was carried away by Aaron's mournful voice, which, however, after a few minutes revealed itself to be excessively whining and almost irritating due to a certain melancholy that I found (and still find) as forced as it is annoying. I immediately thought of an excuse: maybe it was just my first impression, some albums need more listens to be fully appreciated, or perhaps it was just the first song that was a bit flawed, but as I continued listening, I had to reluctantly admit I was facing one of the worst chapters of doom metal. Let's analyze in detail:

Mainly, the album is composed of nine tracks, averaging 5/6 minutes each. The songs that truly deserve a listen are only three, more precisely "A Kiss to Remember", particularly intriguing for its haunting guitar loops, "For You" with its sometimes pressing pace, sometimes sweet and refined gothic flavor (made possible thanks to Martin Powell's presence on violin and keyboards), and finally the wonderful "For My Fallen Angel", an unforgettable track that, in an album like this, is a fish out of water; in this tear-jerking and sadly romantic song, only the keyboards and violin accompany Aaron's almost spoken voice, which proves to be appreciated and never too heavy.

Perfect. But the rest?

Forget emotional involvement (apart from the urgent need to run to the bathroom, of course) and shivers of emotion, forget Aaron's growl's violence, which is completely absent here, forget any change in tone between one song and another, forget even being able to stay awake at least to finish the album (in that case, you would miss the aforementioned "For My Fallen Angel" that My Dying Bride strategically placed at the end of the tracklist), and, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world of "Like Gods of the Sun," where sleeping pills and laxatives don't exist, nor are they needed.

The two guitars sound worse than a jammed lawnmower and seem to be played by an amputee as they are monotonous (do you remember the CHUGGA CHUGGA of Dimmu Borgir? Well, like that, but much slower); certainly, they evoke harrowing nightmares, too bad the object of the nightmare is the album itself.
The keyboards are placed randomly, that is, just for the sake of placing them here and there, frequently causing a hint of annoyance in the listener, while the violin no longer offers the same indescribable emotions of tracks like "Your Shameful Heaven," "From Darkest Skies," or "The Snow in my Hand" as it merely fiddles continuously meaningless melodies (see especially "All Swept Away"), devoid of commitment and thrown superficially into the song almost as if My Dying Bride themselves said 'Okay, now let's put four minutes of violin, so we show everyone we're more gothic...'.
Aaron, as previously mentioned, seems to try hard to be so sad and expressive (see especially "Grace Unhearing"), ending up becoming a caricature of himself with a voice so syrupelley dramatic (an improvised neologism) that it seems that of a walrus with a tracheostomy and an electroencephalogram in the intestine.

But all this is not enough because, wanting to find faults even in the minutest detail, the lyrics are also horrible. Are you familiar with the usual gothic poetry cliché? Well, the MDB lyrics in this album do nothing but say something like:
"Ooohh I'm falling I'm dying someone help me my tears are black my soul is sad and damned death embraces me the night is eternal / Ooohh I love you you don't love me I give you my hand why don't you take it (.. damn!) you're a mean black angel I just want a kiss kiss me kiss me kissss meeee pleeeease"

Okay, I can conclude here. I don't think the rating matters to you (it would have still hovered around 1 or 2). An album to avoid like the plague.