Album Review : My Dying Bride - A Mortal Binding (2024)
My Dying Bride are what I call a reliable band. The British Gothic Doom titans have always known who they are and have always played within their strengths over their thirty-four years career. It’s great to have bands like that. Purveyors of precise pleasures. They have been such an overwhelming force in the Goth metal community over three decades that they could tour for the rest of their lives without ever writing new music. But the well hasn’t dried up yet for My Dying Bride and they are back with A Mortal Binding.
This is very much a My Dying Bride record. It draws within the lines of their inimitable creative paradigm with the utmost precision. The opener Her Dominion offers a furious and magnetic vocal performance by Aaron Stainthorpe to bulky guitar riffs and elegiac violin. There's a brooding anger and longing seeping from Stainthorpe’s voice when he sings that burdens the song with chains of melancholia. It is the voice of a vengeful ghost howling from the grave. It’s somewhat of an emotional experience.
The first single from A Mortal Binding was Thornwyck Hymn, a bombastic, riff heavy number where Aaron Stainthorpe sings of a watery grave. It has a slightly different emotional texture than the more tortured Her Dominion. It's more elegiac and heartbroken, like a man embracing his the sadness of his final days. I loved the vocal harmonies and the incandescent guitar tone piercing through such a rainy song. Dan Mullins, who's back on drum duty after a decade, delivers such a commanding performance.
One detail I appreciated from The 2nd of Three Bells was the use of keyboard, which was both minimalistic and precise. It never calls attention to itself, but Shaun MacGowan is always nearby, modulating the emotional tension in My Dying Bride’s songs. The 2nd of Three Bells also the first song on the record where Aaron Stainthorpe uses both clean and gutturals, allowing Andrew Craighan to unleash the smorgasbord of riffs he can pack in a song. It's a song that makes you work, but that delivers big time.
A Mortal Binding shifts gears with Unthroned Creed. It's a meaner, chuggier cut where Craighan leaves his riffs lingering melodramatically for Aaron Stainthorpe to do what he does best. Seriously, these guys have such ridiculous chemistry together, they feel telepathically connected sometimes. Mullins and bass player Lena Abé are really key on Unthroned Creed. The way they lean into their interpretation with such percussive resolve is what makes it so ridiculously heavy and fun. They make it sound mighty.
The Apocalyptist is the only song on A Mortal Binding clocking at over ten minutes and one of the best (long songs are My Dying Bride’s calling card). The dueling low and high guitars or Andrew Craighan and Neil Blanchett are gripping. They’re feeling a swirling chorus or conflicted voices. The quiet-loud-quiet dynamic is also on point musically and in Aaron Stainthorpe’s performance. The self-righteousness and the inner suffering on the character he narrates are coming through quite vividly. Eleven minutes just fly by.
The penultimate number A Starving Heart is a more dialed back, elegiac cut where violin and keyboard take a more important role. I love how guitar and vocal melodies mirror one another. It’s more of a by-the-numbers My Dying Bride song, but it has character nonetheless. Crushed Embers is a memorable closer. It’s filled with melancholy and fatality. Andrew Craighan goes crazy with riffs here too. It’s so riff heavy that it’s like having a second voice singing next to Aaron Stainthorpe’s. It's over-the-top and beautiful.
*
My Dying Bride is an acquired taste. You either intuitively understand the beautiful of the lengthy, melancholic compositions or you don’t and it'll be no different for A Mortal Binding. It's a record for people who love My Dying Bride. They’re not shopping for new fans here. They merely continue to build on their three decades legacy of Gothic Doom Metal. I might not be able to take a full album of their solemn and tortured sound every year, but once every four years feels right at this stage of their career.
