Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Entry 1128 - My Dying Bride - The Light at the End of the World

Style: Doom/death metal with a hint of gothic

Primary Emotions/Themes: My Dying Bride's album where they shook off their experimentation and got back to what made them an amazing band

Thoughts: In the time leading up to the release of this album the band made quite a stir talking about how they wanted to have growls again. They had been missing for three albums at this point, and I for one was excited. The mix of clean and growled vocals was one of the reasons why I loved Turn Loose the Swans so much, I felt that they were sorely missed.

When listening to The Light at the End of the World I hear a band that is paying tribute to their early works yet not trying to replicate them. There is no violin here, the music is quite a bit more active than any of the last few albums, and there is way more death metal than I expected. There's nothing here like The Forever People, but there are moments the band goes straight up death metal for a few minutes at a time.

What makes this album a proper return to form is their reintroduction of their dual guitar melodies. These had been sorely missed, and Andrew certainly brought them back with a vengeance. These combined with great keyboard work from Johnny Maudling (from Bal-Sagoth no less) brings this album nearly on par with the early works, even sans violin. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Entry 1156 - Nightwish - Wishmaster

Style: Operatic power metal Primary Emotions/Themes: Everything that was started on Oceanborn is amped up even further on this album Thought...