If dirge and poetry could be melded into the lifeblood of a Heavy Metal band, that band would undoubtedly be the Yorkshire, England Doom brigade known as My Dying Bride. Set to release their fifteenth studio album since forming in 1990, the solemn six-piece bring to fans A Mortal Binding, courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records. Released on April 19, 2024, their first studio offering since 2020’s The Ghost of Orion sees the band treading in morose territory once again. How will this work of Doom Death stack up against their prior works?
The answer becomes apparent with the album’s first spin. “Her Dominion” lurks with a brooding menace spat forth by an extremely angry sounding Aaron Stainthorpe on lead vocals. In their finest form, My Dying Bride blends such darkness with the velvet touch of a violin, cascading around some oh-so-Metal, prototypical riffing – the whole is beautiful and bleak.
Album highlight “The Apocalyptist” holds a vast amount of emotional weight over its eleven-plus minute length. Again, Stainthorpe’s voice bursts from below with a feral quality to it; this is beauty tinged with murder for the ears. Shaun MacGowan plies his bow of sorrow on the violin. Fans of “The Cry of Mankind” from 1995’s The Angel & The Dark River will rejoice in the journey, with its almost hopeful midsection letting the composition breathe wonderfully.
“A charter sealed by a bloody crown . . . and a head was carved way upon the mast. And all sailors of the sea were left to drown.” This lyric is sung cleanly over some absolutely banging riffs, capturing perfectly the soul of this music. Solemnity and grace, with an eye toward diversity of sound; Stainthorpe’s clean vocal lament lets light piercing the shroud of gloom, until he slams down the coffin lid with enraged growling. The violin played along with that section is simply tragic and beautiful. No one in heavy music combines these elements quite like My Dying Bride.
The closing elegiac duo of “A Starving Heart” and “Crushed Embers” continues the funeral march, showing that the band’s creative drivers in original Guitarist Andrew Craighan and newcomer Neil Blanchett (Valafar) are content to lay it down thick and keep the pace slow. Bassist Lena Abe holds down the bottom end along with Drummer Dan Mullins (recognized from a prior stint with My Dying Bride).
A discerning listener could wish for some faster songs, thinking back on such favorites as “My Hope, The Destroyer” (2001’s The Dreadful Hours) or “Your Shameful Heaven” (The Angel & The Dark River), because A Mortal Binding really does ratchet down the pace and keep it there. For true Doom heads, this is of course a slice of absolute heaven. Centerpiece tracks like “The 2nd of Three Bells” and “Thornwyck Hymn” make rain and fog during a funeral seem like the setting of a children’s show.
These songs combine mournful violin with Stainthorpe’s hopeless croon, never losing the Metal heart beating within the compositions. There comes no respite on the Death Metal crawl of “Unthroned Creed,” again featuring sunlight-stifling clean vocals over chunky riffs and some well-placed keyboards.
With A Mortal Binding, My Dying Bride bestows even more atmospheric weightiness to its ever-growing repertoire of emotion-soaked Death Metal doom. This is a formula they long ago perfected, and unlike many of their peers, they have not turned their backs on their moribund expressions. My Dying Bride does not imbue their sound with progressive departures or other formulae to attempt at wider commercial appeal. Stainthorpe and company find ever more creativity within their chosen milieu, with the proof being in these seven hefty, millstone-weighted odes to longing and pain. For three-minute song fluff, look elsewhere. For these reasons, Cryptic Rock gives A Mortal Binding 4 out of 5 stars.
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