Artist: My Dying Bride
Title: The Manuscript EP
Genre: Doom/ Death Metal
Release Date: 13 May 2013
Label: Peaceville Records
EP Review
Singles usually come as starters before the mains, but MY DYING BRIDE‘s single ‘The Manuscript’ comes as a dessert after their eleventh album ‘A Map Of All Our Failures’. So what is to be found within this new chapter in this great band’s career? A sumptuous treat of Doom Metal and some of the best lyrics around as one comes to expect of them indeed and a whole lot more besides.
What enthused me about the single the most was the last song ‘Only Tears To Replace Her With’. It’s not only because it’s less crushingly heavy than the rest of the single or even the preceding LP (and you need to come up for air at times), though no less thickly melancholy, but it’s yet more achingly beautiful by its achievement of what can only be described in words as lighter darkness, an elevated feeling in its sadness, it’s also cathartic and more creatively free (expectations thrown of the shoulders), which is not a comment on whether it's better or worse - it just feels more intimate, and this last quality is especially what makes it stand out. Of course the song is also more openly poetic as the music is accompanied by soft spoken word, which by itself predisposes the song to be my favourite. The other songs are wonderful treats all in their own rights; let’s go to my second most liked song here, ‘Var Gud Over Er’ with its sublime melody, death metal growls, wave-like feeling in its composition and the brilliant story-telling. With the opening track there comes after quite a typical MDB sound a wonderful fading out with classical touch just as you’d find in ‘Pale Shroud Of Longing’ – you can hear them bringing in a whiff of the controversial ‘Evinta’ into their regular sound – a perfect marriage here.
With vast majority of bands the singles are really an extraneous rather than essential parts within the whole body of their material, MY DYING BRIDE are an exception to this, their singles are a must, vital parts of their music anatomy – their singles are diastole to their album’s systole within the heart of their music, if you like. So if I were you, I’d not miss out on them.
Tracklist
01. The Manuscript
02. Var Gud Over Er
03. Pale Shroud Of Longing
04. Only Tears To Replace Her With
Line-up
Aaron Stainthorpe – vocals
Andrew Craighan – guitar
Hamish Glencross – guitar
Lena Abé – bass
Shaun Macgowan – violin and keyboards
Websites
http://www.mydyingbride.org/ / https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dying-Bride-Official-uk/282179138510618
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 9.75
Sound: 10
Total: 10 / 10
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