Listening diary 8th April, 2022: My Dying Bride - The Angel and the Dark River (gothic doom
metal, 1995)
I think at this point I can say that I’ve given My Dying Bride a fair shake of the stick and
can throw them pretty firmly in the “do not get” pile. I first tried this when I was but a
wee lad and before I grew a full appreciation for more extreme forms of metal, but even after
a decade of waiting, I still think this is reasonably dry and uninteresting. The death vocals
take a firm backseat here for a focus on gothic melancholy, and for small fragments there are
sections resembling the kind of melancholic beauty they so clearly aim for - and on the whole
I think this has more good material than bad. But there are long stretches of meandering
nothing here, with the slow tempos being ruthlessly exposed when they’re not held in place by
captivating musical ideas. I love a good piece of sad-bait, but I didn’t feel any kind of
sadness at all in this, mostly boredom.
5.1 (5th listen)
Part of my listening diary from my facebook music blog -
www.facebook.com/TheExoskeletalJunction
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