My Dying Bride
The Angel And The Dark River

Ah! Not the great and singular catastrophes of the world, the floods that carry away your villages, the earthquakes that swallow your cities, move me; what tightens my heart is the destructive force inherent in the very essence of nature; which has never created anything that is not destined to destroy the next, to destroy itself. {Johann Wolfgang von Goethe}

The sea, gray like the sky above it, heralds the arrival of a storm. Yet, in this moment of ephemeral calm, one cannot escape from this beautiful and terrifying natural work, remaining fascinated, captivated. Captivated by one's thoughts, memories, and wounds that even after a long time have not completely healed. One is overwhelmed by a wave of disarming melancholy; melancholy for the past times that will never return, when one still rejoiced carefree, when dreams made one hope for a better future. And suddenly one is embraced by a new desire, the desire to desire, what the Germans called Sehnsucht; that extreme, deep, and, in some ways, existential melancholy that leads to always desiring something undefined and slowly leads to a blind destruction.

In this context, My Dying Bride fit in, undoubtedly one of the best doom metal bands of all time. My Dying Bride, born in 1990 in Halifax, seem connected by an invisible thread to the great minds of Romanticism, managing to convey through their music not only the ideas but also the emotions that animated the romantic thinkers and artists. And it is in this great work of reimagining the past that in 1995, the band created what, according to some, is their best album: "The Angel And The Dark River." In this album, the band almost completely abandons the growl and dark atmospheres of the previous masterpiece ("Turn Loose The Swans") to move towards more melancholic and romantic atmospheres thanks also to the splendid work performed by the violinist Martin Powell. The violin parts will be featured in almost all the songs on the album, acting as a guide to the splendid and unsettling journey that the listener will undertake.

The work opens with the stunning guitar riff of "The Cry Of Mankind," which has the task of transporting the listener into a unique dreamlike and reflective dimension, initially thanks to the magnificent guitar parts and the dismal sadness that the singer manages to convey, and then, in the second part of the song, with a break on the edge of ambient music where guitar and drums are no longer heard but only ethereal female voices playing at chasing and overlapping each other in the relentless blowing of a cold and enveloping wind. Thus, we move to the second track "From Darkest Skies"; the song opens with the arpeggio of a low guitar and the entry of the violin, which, throughout the track, will mitigate its sad litany with the powerful and decadent sound offered by the guitarist Andy Craihan. Then we reach the third song "Black Voyage"; the track, at first sensual and melancholy, evolves slowly but inexorably; and when Aaron is heard pronouncing the beautiful words: "Lost forever from the earth | Descending downwards. Is this our re-birth? | Can you feel it? His cruelty glows | This terrible journey, oh, that no-one knows", we arrive at the refrain where the guitar will weave its web of desolation, supported by the ever-present violin until, halfway through the song, a cruel break comes to snatch the traveler from the dream dimension, to transport him into a horrible nightmare. Aaron's voice loses its past sensuality to move to a diabolical resignation; it feels like falling from an infinite height, pushed more and more rapidly by an invisible hand towards the ground; but, just when one believes that the moment of impact has come, the guitar evolves its nature once again, becoming warm, enveloping, helped by the violin, which, like an angel descended from heaven, will come to its aid. Next, we move on to the splendid keyboard piece of "A Sea to Suffer In," a track that (like "Your Shameful Heaven") contrasts slow parts with more intense and faster ones, making the traveler feel as if they were on a ship sailing a stormy sea, their life in the hands of nature that moves, at its pleasure, the sea waves which could engulf the unfortunate listener at any moment, taking them to the most distant depths of the ocean. But this threat also passes, and we arrive exhausted at the track "Two Winters Only." Here, it will be the violin and Aaron's voice that will showcase the draconian and, at the same time, sweet law of nature. It feels as if one is in an immense flat expanse covered with a thick layer of snow. A forest of tall birches to the right prevents the complete contemplation of that immense winter landscape. Desolation reigns supreme until from the depth of the forest, an ethereal, beautiful, angelic creature begins to be seen, and as she draws nearer to the traveler, her splendid and elusive features reveal the figure of the first woman loved; an evanescent mirage created by the wandering and finite human mind. A melancholic and tearing sadness thus takes the listener. Sadness that recalls the many moments of joy in past life, moments that will likely never be relived. The love for that woman, probably once a girl, will blur the vision of the traveler, making him sink into the snow, making him desire a return to those moments when he was together with Her, moments when She and He were one, inseparable, unique. All this happens while Aaron's splendid words echo in our head: "We could have changed the world, had you been here with me. Right now | Held you in my arms. In my arms, my love | Jesus wept so man could live forever on earth. In peace | But my tears. They fall for you. Only you."

We then arrive at the already mentioned "Your Shameful Heaven" which, in theory, concludes the dance and that while being a good track, does not manage to match the previous ones. However, that "in theory" refers to the fact that it is not "Your Shameful Heaven" that concludes the work, but it is the amazing bonus track "The Sexuality of Bereavement," a song that opens with the notes of a sweet and, at times, unsettling violin that first blends with Aaron's angry growl and then gives way to the splendid roar of the singer.

Thus ends the splendid journey that the listener has experienced and will probably relive many, many times, captivated by the beautiful melodies and splendid lyrics of the album.

And so, as we watch the disarming spectacle of nature, the thoughts that beset the mind are lost in the infinity of that gray expanse until the mind itself dissolves. Thus, the coveted state of the sublime is reached, where infinity does not frighten the human being but cradles them in an indistinct pleasure from which one would never want to flee.

 
Always dear to me was this solitary hill,
And this hedge, which from so much of
The ultimate horizon excludes the glance.
But sitting and gazing, interminable 5
Spaces beyond it, and superhuman
Silences, and the deepest calm
I pretend in my thought; where for a while
The heart is not afraid. And as the wind
I hear rustling among these plants, I that10
Infinite silence to this voice
I compare, and I remember the eternal,
And the dead seasons, and the present
And living, and the sound of it. Thus in this
Immensity my thought drowns:15
And sweet is the shipwreck in this sea.

{Giacomo Leopardi - L'infinito}

Rating 94/100

I thank Lila who helped me in reviewing this review.