Send "My Dying Bride " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Heavymetal |
 My Dying Bride have been making grim, doleful music for 20 years now, and continue the fine tradition with the spooky The Barghest O’Whitby EP. This is a mystical, creepy doom album full of sprites and goblins in the strings and triggers, perfect for Halloween. The album was recorded at Futureworks studio in Manchester with long-time collaborator Mags, and features new violinist/keyboardist Shaun Macgowan, as well as the return of drummer Shaun “Winter” Taylor. The EP takes the form of a single, haunting 27-minute track. A “barghest” is a word for an English spirit that takes the form of a huge black dog, with monstrous teeth and claws. These demonic creatures are often conjured by acts of violence and betrayal, and like to prey on solitary travellers. This title is appropriately, given this EP is composed of some of the grimmest doom metal My Dying Bride have created recently. The sound is bleak and wet, evoking pouring rain and a flat, howling landscape, all moors and mourning. The Barghest O’Whitby is an angry record, but a slow burn, every measured crash of the cymbals and wail of the guitar a promise of vengeance exacted slowly. This is revenge served very, very cold. I occasionally questioned the single-track structure, as there were several moments when the track naturally ended and divided. With rests instead of full stops, there’s more a sense of a single evolving narrative, but this could be just as effective as separate songs....full text |
| Roadrunnerrecords |
| Following the release of "Evinta" earlier this year, in which the band marked 20 years of existence with a release of symphonic compositions re-imagining past MY DYING BRIDE themes, the U.K. doom legends now present their latest chapter in the form of new EP, "The Barghest O' Whitby", to be released November 7 through Peaceville Records on CD and limited vinyl. This single track, 25-minute epic represents the epitome of poetic grace and funeral soundscapes from one of gothic doom's most celebrated acts. With a masterful blend of pounding guitar riffs and sombre atmospheric passages, MY DYING BRIDE embarks on a chilling journey through superstition and folklore. Said the band on the origin of the idea, "Carrying straight on from the success of 'Evinta' found us kind of out of breath for a second; we were already aware of a new-found love of all things bleak and grey and were eager to start writing in a more traditional MY DYING BRIDE style. What did catch us off guard was the increased heaviness and the fresh approach to song writing. Moving away somewhat with the lyrical theme from our usual feeding ground, we found ourselves on the rainy moors of Yorkshire contemplating the story of the Barghest, a supernatural entity hell bent on revenge. The tale now to be told wove itself into a 25-minute epic which initially we thought would be a three part EP, but it simply became one very long song full of everything MY DYING BRIDE and more. The violins conjure lonely tears atop a chasm of epic British doom." "The Barghest O' Whitby" was recorded at Futureworks Studios in Manchester with longtime production partner and engineer, Mags. The release is the first to feature violin/keyboardist Shaun Macgowan, and sees the return of Shaun "Winter" Taylor Steels to the drum stool for this recording. The cover artwork for "The Barghest O' Whitby" also appears courtesy of vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe....full text |
| Guitarworld |
| When British doomers My Dying Bride released Evinta back in May, fans knew they were in for something different. The full-length CD featured some of the band's early works reanimated by classical-music instruments. After dismissing the conductor's baton, the band — vocalist Aaron Stainthrope, guitarists Andrew Craighan and Hamish Glencross, bassist Lena Abé and drummer Shaun “Winter” Taylor-Steels (who last played with the band in 2006 before joining up with Frode Forsmo and Kjetil Ottersen in the Norwegian melancholic outfit Vestige of Virtue) — returned to its dynamically dirge-inspired metal. Band members found themselves on England's moors exploring folk tales about the barghest, a demonic black dog, which was the inspiration for the descriptions in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes entry, The Hound of the Baskervilles. My Dying Bride conjured up the concept of a supernatural creature “hell-bent on revenge” for the EP, released November 8 on the Peaceville label. Incidentally, the tale takes place in Whitby, the same town as Bram Stoker's Dracula. Originally idealized as a multi-song release, the band stitched the tracks together into one, 25-minute gloom-laden epic that pays homage to Black Sabbath's stormy-night soundscapes and Candlemass' sustained riffages and erupts into a growling double-bass climax. It would have been easy for Stainthrope and his coven to unleash an unruly and meandering beast of a release, but was able to structure the work as a mini-, metal concerto. Opening with a thunder crack and moving into cemetery-gate guitars, the piece opens up when Stainthrope's throaty delivery emerges from the shadows. Craighan and Glencross intuitively team up and break off, which gives the work some effective disarray, while Abé's bass and Taylor-Steele's pounding finds the deep dark pit of foundation on which the others lay their tracks. Giving the work some old-world dust, My Dying Bride recruited Shaun Macgowan to string in some lonely violin to tint the composition's already ritualistic pentatonic tunings. Unlike the band's 1993 single-song EP, Unreleased Bitterness, which was basically an eight-minute rehearsal of the song “The Bitterness and Bereavement,” The Barghest O' Whitby is a fully realized project produced by long-time engineer Mags at Futureworks Studio in Manchester. The new EP will only whet the appetites of rabid fans for the next offering, whatever and whenever it may be....full text |
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