My Dying Bride
Meisterwerk II

THE REVIEW

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.