The "Dying Bride" is still among us.

And my desire for death resurfaces once more.

Sister death is present everywhere in this collection from the English; starting from the funeral cover of that livid color. A digipack that opens to a cross, staying on theme.

And we arrive at the long compositions that smell of Gothic-Doom-Death Metal. A stagnant, slow, and spectral music; My Dying Bride have no rivals and know no other musical creed. They envelop you in their infinite and dark coils made of chilling notes; it has always been this way with them, since the very distant beginnings of the early nineties.

The eight minutes of "She Is The Dark" once again demonstrate the uniqueness of a band that has very rarely made missteps; a song that highlights Aaron's vocals, at first clean, declamatory, then veering toward a stormy and emaciated growl, leaving one stunned in listening.

There is room for the brief Death Metal burst of "Catching Feathers" taken from one of the group's early demos; the interminable "Two Winters Only" pays homage to their darker side, with that violin sound that suddenly appears from nowhere and accompanies the electricity of a guitar: the call of gloomy and terrifying death has never been so evident.

We are at the end; the concluding cover I never expected to hear: it is "Roads" by Portishead. They provide a most worthy interpretation: the solemn and dark atmospheres typical of My Dying Bride meeting and marrying (a not entirely accidental term...) the decadent Trip Hop of the Bristol band. Spine-chilling everywhere.

Ad Maiora.

Tracklist Lyrics and Videos

01   Sear Me MCMXCIII (07:21)

Pour yourself into me
Our time approaches so near, that I sign.
What danger in such an adorer?
We dance and the music dies.
We carry them all away
As we glide through their lost eyes.
You lift me above myself
With the ghostly lake of your mind.
Arise from your slumber in my arms.
Your beauty took the strength from me.
In the meadows of heaven
We run through the stars.
Romantic in our tastes.
We are without excuse.
We burn in our lust.
We die in our eyes and drown in our arms.

02   Follower (05:13)

03   Vast Choirs (07:37)

Burdens of grief that weigh against me
Aid my tired eyes in their search for pitch
Your kinds heart now pines
For whom the gods love dies young
Wrapped and confounded in a thousand fears
The sadness I present, smiles with tears
Where once I'd loved now lied forlorn beauty
And wars abhorred by mothers

No man lives so poor as he was born
We don't remember pure sensations
Gaze peacefully into the past
I am dust , and to dust I shall return
Belial, Mephisto, both shall burn me up
Devour my sad whimperings
The cutting whip is mine to feel
No symphony in mind to colour my dreams

Poena damni
Sorrow everywhere
Please pray for me
When deep sleep falls on men
Father hold me
I am yours to bear
Ad te

In the play which he has written for the world
Night is the mother of sleep
Old age is a malady of which one dies
Augury of a better age
Sages as far as the beard
Their wounds smelled so sweetly
Temptation, the father of my lust
Chalcedony shines like the new born

Stricken I'd raise my dripping limbs
Splendid was the innocentcs fall
Laugh to scorn would our foe
Amid wars laws are silent
Drop by drop in sleep upon the heart
Falls the labrious memory of pain
In the rich upheavel of vast choirs
Death shall flee from me

Misericordium et judicium
Adhoest pavimento
AD te levavi ocolus meos
Verba mea auribus

04   She Is the Dark (08:26)

A cruel sleep 'cross our land
All withered and dying
As the fall, the victims
They're dying a sad death
In our land, we lay down
And suffer again

A dark girl'cross our land
Is pacing. Is preying
And with her, a fever
A marching black fever
No eyes see. No features
Just black form, suffering

You have her sympathy
You have her tears
She tries only to take
All your fears
The pain she feels
When she drinks your soul
Is hers to suffer
It is her toll
Believe me, she's helpless
When she curses our land
When she swallows light
It's not her hand

Poison awaits when you kiss her
Her heart cries out for you, for me
Untold misery is hers to serve
out for eternity
Out cold. Mankind will stay
forevermore if she gets her way
She can't help it. It's her curse
To sing your pain in her own verse

She is the dark
The nightmares you hide
The pain you feel
The suffering inside
Though she was like you
Through her dark past
But now, the conqueror
Her choirs vast
Oh, please forgive her
As mankind dies
As angels weep
And heaven cries

05   Catching Feathers (03:44)

If my child should die before me
the sweetness of youth, a smile that sings
eyes alight insanely butchered, perverse drooling
horrific beyond restraint

Lord of the dance, lust is murder for this brave man
high, slaughtering general in a white feathered army
mort knows your name, his, before your time
I'd love to see you suffer, too much to be called a crime

The sweetness of youth, a smile that sings
eyes alight insanely butchered, perverse drooling
you cannot even pray, for you have no god

06   Two Winters Only (09:02)

07   Your River (09:23)

Your bloodied body is what I cling to.
In powerful rain, they laid down their heads to die.
Let your dark, thirsty eyes drink deep the sights of me.
It's sad that, in our blindness, we gather thorns for flowers.
Your river holds a feast of danger.
The suffering you have had to bear.
I'd die for that moment one more time.
The loved one falls below your ideals.
Pleasure too safely enjoyed lacks zest.
The brave lick their sickening lips.
Rigid, handsome and a poet.
A king in his passionate castle.
Where now?
Feed me!
Hold me!
Save me!
Save yourself!
Where now?
Which way?
Dear god, show me.
Take your own.
Struggle free!
Arise!
You're Ruined!
Stand down!
Your kin, piled thick around you.
Save yourself!

08   Some Velvet Morning (05:58)

Some velvet morning when I'm straight
I'm gonna open up your gate
And maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra
And how she gave me life and how she made it end
Some velvet morning when I'm straight

Some velvet morning when I'm straight
I'm gonna open up your gate
And maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra
And how she gave me life and how she made it end
Some velvet morning when I'm straight

Flowers are the things we knew
Secrets are the things we grew
Learn from us very much
Look at us, but do not touch
Phaedra is my name

Some velvet morning when I'm straight
I'm gonna open up your gate
And maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra
And how she gave me life and how she made it end
Some velvet morning when I'm straight

09   Roads (05:09)

Loading comments  slowly