Entry 1426 - My Dying Bride - The Angel and the Dark River

Style: gothic/doom metal

Primary Emotions/Themes: deep... tragic loss, an uncontrollable grief, lack of a stabilizing force, longing, needing... yearning

Thoughts: My Dying Bride. I don't think I can think of a more consistent discography than these guys for their first eight albums. The first four in particular are nearly all flawless masterpieces. Each providing a different side of the band. Each providing a unique perspective into the sorrow that only these Brits could do.

Their third offering - The Angel and the Dark River - sees the band venturing further from the death metal roots. Abandoning the aggressive riffing and harsh vocals all together (save for one bonus track), opting instead for a more drawn out and emotionally explorative opus.

We've traded rage for remorse. Hatred for loss. Death for longing. Death metal for ambience. Aggression for reflection. 

There are only six songs on this record, and yet it still is near an hour in length. These songs are long, and they use that length to explore things that the band had not to this point. The ambient sections that were teased in the longer songs on Turn Loose the Swans are now major components of the entire album. Over half of the opener's epic 12 minutes are the band experimenting with different sounds and effects. 

When I first heard this album I didn't care for it nearly as much as the first two. It seemed like the band had lost their way, got too far into the experimental portion of their sound. It reminded me too much of their 5th album (34.788% Complete), and at the time I thought that album was a complete garbled mess. Years of reflection and listening have changed my mind though. 

The ambience on this album (and later albums) allow the band to explore more abstract emotions than metal had been able to at this point. A sense of wandering and loneliness can be exemplified to a much greater extent in six minutes of meandering ambience than nearly an hour of metal. Metal can portray the soul crushing effects of these emotions well, however the complete lack of direction and confusion that come with them are best left to other genres.

The Angel and the Dark River is a complex work that walks the line between genius and disaster nearly flawlessly. The experimentation that the band show here is a clear sign of the band evolving beyond their brutal roots. It took me a while, but I can definitively say as of this writing that this evolution was for the betterment of the band and where they were at this time in their career.