British doom/death metal legends My Dying Bride are primed to unfurl their 15th album, A Mortal Binding, via Nuclear Blast. The much-anticipated follow-up to The Ghost of Orion (2019) finds the Yorkshire-based quintet—featuring a revamped lineup of now-permanent guitarist Neil Blanchett and the return of drummer Dan Mullins—delighting in anxiety, loss, and toil to resplendent effect.
From the raw distress of “Her Dominion” and twisted horror of “Thornwyck Hymn” to the funerary violins of the 11-minute monolith “The Apocalyptist” and the classic-feeling “The 2nd of Three Bells,” A Mortal Binding is signature My Dying Bride. If Songs of Darkness, Words of Light (2004) elevated the group to new heights and A Map of All Our Failures (2012) expanded upon their mid-tens grandeur, then A Mortal Binding stages My Dying Bride’s next exultant phase of elegiac misery perfectly.
Vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe is renowned for weaving a rich lyrical tapestry. Fittingly, Rolling Stone once opined that My Dying Bride, in all their gothic ornament, were ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the ears.’ Others, including the group’s globe-spanning legion of enthusiasts, have felt similarly. Popular British magazine Kerrang! described The Ghost of Orion’s content as possessing “poignant gravity.” At the same time, Metal Hammer Germany couldn’t get enough of it, honoring its sonic and emotional heft with “best doom album of the year.” The lovefest will inevitably continue on A Mortal Binding, the lyrics for which will go down as some of Stainthorpe’s best.
My Dying Bride yet again hired The Ghost of Orion studio wizard Mark Mynett to produce, mix, and master A Mortal Binding. The group holed up at Mynett’s Mynetaur Productions (Paradise Lost, Rotting Christ) in Manchester, England, where they tracked nine songs—two unnamed for a future EP—non-consecutively from July to September. Although the striking “Her Dominion,” the withering movements of “Crushed Embers,” and the processional gray of “A Starving Heart” originated in the rehearsal room, they got their official My Dying Bride wings under Mynett’s expert tutelage.
As My Dying Bride edge past their 33rd year, their graceful age is proving to be as vital and heart-wrenching as ever. The depth of “Thornwyck Hymn” and “Her Dominion” and the breadth of “The 2nd of Three Bells” and “The Apocalyptist” are ultra-heavy, poignant hymns to doom, death, and despair as lensed through hauntingly romantic themes.
1. Her Dominion (6:11)
2. Thornwyck Hymn (6:48)
3. The 2nd Of Three Bells (6:52)
4. Unthroned Creed (7:01)
5. The Apocalyptist (11:23)
6. A Starving Heart (7:29)
7. Crushed Embers (9:02)
