My Dying Bride - The Ghost Of Orion review
Band: | My Dying Bride |
Album: | The Ghost Of Orion |
Style: | Death doom metal |
Release date: | March 2020 |
01. Your Broken Shore
02. To Outlive The Gods
03. Tired Of Tears
04. The Solace
05. The Long Black Land
06. The Ghost Of Orion
07. The Old Earth
08. Your Woven Shore
30 years is a long time for a band to be active and it is also about as long as I have been a fanboy. Since I first heard the opening notes of "Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium", I forever fell in love with My Dying Bride. Grab a coffee or a beer, Metalstormers, this is going to be a long-ass review.
It is a small miracle that we have The Ghost Of Orion in our hands. This band had everything thrown at them; vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe's daughter was diagnosed with cancer at the age of five, putting on hold everything related to My Dying Bride. As if that wasn't enough, returning original member and guitarist Calvin Robertshaw left again, as did drummer Shaun Taylor-Steels. Consequently, the music on the new album was written entirely by guitarist Andrew Craighan, who had no one to turn to; even bassist Lena Abé was on maternal leave. Fortunately, Aaron's daughter is healthy again and this is the most important thing. Also, ex-Paradise Lost drummer Jeff Singer took over drumming duties and he is actually one of the reasons this album is worth listening to.
The Ghost Of Orion is the first release of My Dying Bride on Nuclear Blast, after being all these years on Peaceville. The album is easier on the ear than previous releases of the band, but at the same time it is simpler and less interesting. On the positive side, Shaun MacGowan's violin and Jo Quail's cello are beautifully incorporated in the songs and dance in sync with the guitar riffs and melodies, and Jeff Singer's performance on drums also contributes significantly towards saving the album from sounding totally monotonous. Eliran Kantor's artwork is also one of the best you are going to see this year.
Of the eight songs, three are 'fillers' or interludes, with "The Solace", featuring Lindy-Fay Hella of Wardruna fame on vocals, being the most interesting one. The other two feel like good ideas for songs that were left unfinished and they are also weirdly placed in the track sequence. The rest of the album's runtime is occupied by really long tracks that - with the exception of the excellent "Your Broken Shore" - don't always have enough 'meat' to justify their duration. "The Long Black Land" builds up beautifully, it has a very dramatic middle part and is absolutely compelling for the first seven minutes or so, but then drags for no reason and ends so abruptly, as if the band didn't know how to finish it. "The Old Earth" is another example of a good song that unfortunately overstays its welcome and shows why you can't have tracks going past the 10-minute mark unless you have composed something truly outstanding like "Symphonaire...", "The Crown Of Sympathy", "The Cry Of Mankind", "Edenbeast" or "The Barghest O' Whitby".
Even "Tired Of Tears", which has lyrics that Aaron wrote inspired by his daughter's health ordeal, does not hit as hard as "And My Father Left Forever" from Feel The Misery did. The main reason for this is also my biggest issue with the album as a whole, and that is Aaron's multi-tracked clean vocals (the raspy ones are more than fine). They are so overproduced and layered that they sound completely unnatural and thus fail to create the deep emotional impact that they have achieved every single time in the past. After doing some digging, I found out that he has said the following: "Recording the album was exhausting. Every day something was wrong. I couldn't get back to it. I was singing the vocals wrong. I had to be corrected every day on every song on every line in every song. It was like being beaten around the head. There was a point - around halfway through it - that I thought, 'They're gonna need another vocalist. I just can't do this anymore. I don't know where I am.' After all I had been through I didn't know how to vocalize for My Dying Bride anymore". It is obvious to me that this is the reason why his cleans are so over-processed, which is something I simply can't ignore while listening to the album.
Signing with the biggest metal label out there is going to give My Dying Bride access that they never had before. Of course, this comes with obligations, one of which may be to release new material even if the band is not ready for it; and this particular band clearly wasn't ready for it. They may appear now on every metal website and talk on YouTube about what the scene was like back in the day, but there is too much here that is not on par with what My Dying Bride once was. And it's not that there are bad songs on The Ghost Of Orion, since this band simply doesn't know what 'bad' is, but we need to accept that this effort could have been significantly better. After five years of waiting, this is underwhelming.
I am extremely happy that one of my most beloved bands has managed to overcome the difficulties and to keep going, but I have very high expectations from My Dying Bride. This record may have been okay or even good for other bands like, I don't know, Swallow The Sun maybe, but for these doom lords from Halifax, it feels rushed and it is certainly not one of their greatest moments.
"Beast broken by time
Captive voice, streams lie"
| Written on 14.03.2020 by Only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud! |
Comments
Comments: 21
Visited by: 307 users
RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff |
nikarg Staff |
RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff |
nikarg Staff |
LuciferOfGayness Account deleted |
ickoriss |
nikarg Staff |
Redel Moderator |
nikarg Staff |
ickoriss |
Bad English Tage Westerlund |
Redel Moderator |
thetrimsmith |
Enemy of Reality Account deleted |
nikarg Staff |
The Melting Snow |
Bad English Tage Westerlund |
Absinthe |
Passenger Lost To Apathy |
Pelcu |
tintinb Posts: 1815 |
Hits total: 6087 | This month: 45