The agony of love – review of My Dying Bride’s “A Mortal Binding”

My Dying Bride returned on the musical scene with their fourteenth album “A Mortal Binding” after four years. Released on 19th april under the label Nuclear Blast, this latest work has been recorded in Manchester at Mynett’s Mynetaur Productions studio. The artwork was created by the Italian Roberto Bordin.

The English doom/death/gothic metal band is a pioner of this genre along with Anathema and Paradise Lost, but this work doesn’t seem reflect their greatness and their importance about such genre. It’s obviously a good album, but not so relevant in their discography. Conversely it could be a good business card for the ones who discovered now My Dying Bride.

They may have lost a little of their creativity, but the songwriting of the songs is always hard and solid, as well as the harsh vocals of the frontman Aaron Stainthorpe. The riffs are consistent but not so much, same goes for the drums. Surely My Dying Bride have not forgotten how to create melancholic atmospheres clearly amplified by keyboards and violins.

On the other hand it’s difficult that a historic band can always produce quality albums, especially after over thirty years of career.A Mortal Binding it’s a trip where listeners came wrapped in a typical gothic tragedy love story, but with some stumbles in their path. The slowness of typical doom songs manages to immerse the listener but not so much as to make the story feel like one’s own. A long agony of love in an apocalyptic scenario in which a pinch of originality, musically speaking, is missing.