My Dying Bride – A Mortal Binding

The British Doom Metal legends released their previous album The Ghost of Orion just days before the pandemic paralyzed the world in 2020. It was an important album for the band, because it came out after five years of not releasing new music, the longest period between two albums in the band’s almost three-decade-long career.
The album was also important, because it was their first album not to be released by Peaceville Records. At the same time, that Nuclear Blast debut was also an album that boldly explored the more approachable side of My Dying Bride’s musical spectrum.

It goes without saying that the pandemic lockdown affected the release of the previous album greatly. The classical means of promotion and touring activity were mostly disregarded as well, which kind of flushed their plans with Nuclear Blast down the tubes. But taking the nature of the band’s music into consideration, for many, it worked as somewhat of a soundtrack for the grim times we were entering.

That being said, the album, while most certainly being good, did lack the quality that characterizes some of the band’s most defining releases, despite it coming out at a significant moment for the band.

So, four years later, the band is ready with a follow-up, their second album on Nuclear Blast. Entitled A Mortal Binding just like its predecessor, it’s produced by Mark Mynett. Sonically, however, the album is noticeably different-sounding, focusing more of that big fat My Dying Bride sound. The guitars are heftier, and the overall experience is far more bombastic, while at the same time maintaining that solid balance between the instruments.

And quite suitably, the band opens the album without any innuendo with a trademark massive riff that characterizes the opener “Her Dominion”. Despite a running time of 6 minutes, it feels compact and trimmed of any necessaries. The song comes around just about all of the band’s trademarks, so the big riff is accompanied by the characteristic grim vocals, courtesy of Aaron Stainthorpe, as well as those static guitar noises, which juxtapose the refinements and beautify of simple violin lines.

What is often the case with such utterly effective openers is that the following songs might have a hard time maintaining the same impact. That is, however, in no way the case with A Mortal Binding which continues with one strong song after another, keeping that tight grip on the listener set by the opener and at times even strengthening it, like on flawless “The 2^nd of Three Bells” and “Unthroned Creed”. Elsewhere, “The Apocalyptist” goes grand with a running time of neatly 12 minutes, yet it never feels even a moment too long – something the band hard time achieving on their previous album. The song merges vitality, variation, and repetition in an intense journey, much like the opener checking all My Dying Bride-characteristics.

Throughout the seven tracks, the band manages to maintain the flow and quality of the material, and despite the typical long running time with possible exception of “Crushed Embers” none of the songs overstay their welcome. Production approach works rather well, and compared to its predecessor, it does feel like an upgrade. The violin sound, on the other hand, comes across as synthetic, and as such, it sticks out from the final mix, and that takes some getting used to. Still considering the nature of the band’s music and lyrical imagery, the choice of violin sound seems illogical. A more of classical violin sound would complement the album additionally. On the other hand, the fairly subtle yet almost constant presence of keyboards is spot-on, and despite them overall taking the backseat, they play a big role in the feel and flow of the album.

The massive sound works rather well with the material, and its intensity and approach are reminiscent mid ’00-era of the band. In many ways this album could’ve been released as a follow-up to that monumental duo of Songs of Darkness, Words of Light and A Line of Deathless Kings.

My Dying Bride doesn’t release weak albums, but it’s worth mentioning that more than three decades into their recording career, the band has just released one of their strongest albums since 2006’s A Line of Deathless Kings. You may take off your hats now.

www.mydyingbride.net