As a doom metal trailblazer, MY DYING BRIDE have stayed relevant in the dark music scene for over two decades, not disappointing with any of their releases. Their fifteenth studio album, “A Mortal Binding,” out on April 19th, 2024, via Nuclear Blast Records, is no exception to this. The band previously treated their fans with two singles launched a month before the album, “The 2nd of Three Bells” and “Thornwyck Hymn.” Through a powerful sound colliding with a gloomy vibe, they provide a good introduction to what we can expect from “A Mortal Binding.” In MY DYING BRIDE’s style, “A Mortal Binding” comprises seven long-lasting songs of heavy and gloomy sounds, prioritizing quality over quantity.
The album begins with an aggressive intro by “Her Dominion,” a song that intersects the heavy side of the band with the melancholic doom metal aura. “Her Dominion” takes the listener to a sonic experience where MY DYING BRIDE’s two musical sides -the aggressive and the ethereal- meet each other through the contrasts of peaceful violins, rapid guitar riffs, and Aaron Stainthorpe’s growling voice. “Her Dominion” boosts stamina to what is coming in the following contrasting track. “Thornwyck Hymn,” on the other hand, enacts Aaron’s clean vocals accompanied by Shaun MacGowan’s soft violins in the background. This song has the quiet atmosphere of a dark metal ballad that puts the listener into a peaceful state of mind. As one of the singles previewing “A Mortal Binding,” it is an accurate introduction by intertwining soft voices, heavy guitars, and theatrical violins, a formula prevalent throughout the album. “The 2nd of Three Bells” follows a similar atmosphere with Aaron’s clean vocals at the front of the song all across the first four minutes, however, those vocals turn into growls in the final two minutes and the song becomes heavy in guitar riffs. A more experimental piece than the previous ones, encouraging us to pay close attention to the musical and lyrical changes from one song to the other.
Next up, “Unthroned Creed” appears as a rhythmic change with a more aggressive beginning, but slowing down all across the song. It certainly has an ethereal cadence that interlinks heavy riffs with sweet tunes on the lyrical side. “Unthroned Creed” might be one of the most interesting songs in this album as it uses a heavy background together with melancholic vocals. In a very different style, “The Apocalyptist” offers a variety of rhythms that come up and down all across the 11-minute song. In a soft introduction with Shaun’s violins taking the leading role, “The Apocalyptist” starts on the gentle side of doom metal, nonetheless the sound rapidly changes with Aaron’s growls that sing while the violins continue to soften our ears in a gloomy ambiance. The song goes on aggressively but slowly, intertwining the best and most characteristic sounds in MY DYING BRIDE’s repertoire. As the song follows its course, through violins in the background, it finishes with a splendid and aggressive howl that puts a contrast to the tender entrance that makes us wonder if this was a ballad song or a sorrowful long-lasting dark metal passage.
As we approach the end of the album, two songs culminate in this immersive experience that has been both stormy and gentle at once. “A Starving Heart” starts this ending with a long-lasting melody of acoustic guitars that collide eventually with clean vocals in a narrative mood as if we were listening to a dark mass. This gentle song serves as a good ending, but not so soon as the final punch of sorrow comes right after with “Crushed Embers,” a similar but yet more obscure track. This one takes pride in the slowness that characterizes doom metal, as it is the gentlest in the entire record, at a pace that allows the listener to rest and headbang one last time.
“A Mortal Binding” follows MY DYING BRIDE‘s respected formula of combining clean and dark musical elements at once, resulting in pieces that are both soft as a Gothic metal song and aggressive as a death metal one. Probably taking the risk to create more experimental pieces, such as “Unthroned Creed” and “The Apocaliptyst,” would have added more variety in the sounds of the tracklist with swings in voice tones, instruments, and sonic atmospheres. Nonetheless, as their formula already works quite well there is no need to make changes in the overall atmosphere in their future albums. This style has traced the steps for other bands in the genre and reasserts MY DYING BRIDE‘s influence as a dark metal music act.
Written by Hector Sanchez
TRACKLIST
- Her Dominion
- Thornwyck Hymn
- The 2nd of Three Bells
- Unthroned Creed
- The Apocalyptist
- A Starving Heart
- Crushed Embers
LINEUP
Aaron Stainthorpe | vocals
Andrew Craighan | lead guitar
Lena Abé | bass
Shaun MacGowan | violin, keyboards
Neil Blanchett | guitar
Dan Mullins | drums
LABEL
Nuclear Blast
