Bought today: Angel And The Dark River, The Dreadful Hours and A Map Of All Our Failures (along with Paradise Lost - Draconian Times, Entombed - Left Hand Path, Cathedral - Forest Of Equilibrium. My first albums by each band. I nearly also bought more Paradise Lost, Candlemass and Anathema but wasn't sure which ones to get. Need to research a bit more.) Hope to listen to all this relatively soon.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 3 September 2015 19:20 (eight years ago) link
2nd and 3rd tracks of Turn Loose The Swans are so damn good.
Another reason for delaying getting into this band is the name. Got them confused with other bands I hadn't heard like My Chemical Romance and Bullett For My Valentine. Fortunately I was already familiar with My Bloody Valentine. Three are metal bands and My Chemical Romance is the only band name without a violent/deathy word.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 19 September 2015 22:07 (eight years ago) link
I think today this album has the I Am The Bloody Earth EP tracks tacked on right? I imagine that'd make the album a bit overlong.
― Siegbran, Saturday, 19 September 2015 22:49 (eight years ago) link
it's all about the title track of Turn Loose The Swans for me.
― charlie h, Sunday, 20 September 2015 05:24 (eight years ago) link
new one is dope. at times it sounds like 80s pop if it was nihilistic and sung by Gargamel
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, 21 September 2015 23:54 (eight years ago) link
Cool. I'm hoping to hear a metal band fronted by a guy who sounds like Cobra Commander (or a lot of the other villains Chris Latta voiced) someday.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 22 September 2015 08:46 (eight years ago) link
Feel a bit mixed about Angel And The Dark River. "From Darkest Skies" is terrific but none of the other tracks won me over in their entirety. "Two Winters Only" would have been perfect without the loud bits, the rest of the song is so lovely. The bonus track "The Sexuality Of Bereavement" is really strange and impressive. It's like this dizzy swaying funeral march with a swirling darkness about it.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 23:42 (seven years ago) link
"Songless Bird" and "Your River" really are extraordinary.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 18 February 2017 19:27 (seven years ago) link
Still in awe of those two.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 10 July 2017 23:36 (six years ago) link
of interest: https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2017/11/21/track-premiere-godthrymm-grand-reclamation/#.WhRco7yjhpg.facebook
back when I used to find MDB just too corny. my ability to take stuff on its own terms has gotten a lot better over the last ten years or so though and I am gonna listen to their entire discography this week because their music is completely doing the trick for me right now. listened to Songs of Darkness, Words of Light twice last night. Fuckin great stuff
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 24 November 2017 13:35 (six years ago) link
Listening to The Dreadful Hours these days. I cant think of another band who switch on and off what I love about them so frequently. Really beautiful parts and then parts that don't do anything for me.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 6 April 2018 17:31 (five years ago) link
Really enjoying this now, the last song is particularly good.
"I can see from your smile that you're not here for the sunset"
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 20 April 2018 19:19 (five years ago) link
"She came, she saw, she took anything she likedMy eyes burned with her horrorThey fell, they screamed, they wept but they diedFrom hands of the abhorrer"
Great part from "Black Heart Romance", one of the best on the album.
There's a part in the last track not in the lyrics book, I think he says "to you that lies dying, right beside the river"....? His voice sounds really awesome there.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 May 2018 19:39 (five years ago) link
Started A Map Of All Our Failures recently and was cheered by the thought that I probably only have 3 to 5 MDB albums to get, but I checked and it's more like 13 albums! Annoyingly the Meisterwerk compilations have album tracks on them.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 5 August 2018 15:46 (five years ago) link
Not that thrilled by this album but "Within The Presence Of Absence" and "Like A Perpetual Funeral" are great.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 24 August 2018 16:49 (five years ago) link
MDB never really made a bad album but I can imagine it’s diminishing returns once you get away from the 4-5 best ones. Might be more interesting to check out some of their contemporaries who made records (nearly) as good as peak MDB:Saturnus - Paradise Belongs To YouOctober Tide - Rain Without EndParamaecium - Exhumed Of The EarthCelestial Season - Forever Scarlet PassionDecomposed - Hope Finally DiedCeremonium - Into The Autumn ShadeEnchantment - Dance The Marble Naked (dodgy vocals keep this one down tho)
(assuming you’ve already heard the first three Anathema records and Paradise Lost - Gothic)
― Siegbran, Friday, 24 August 2018 18:40 (five years ago) link
Thanks. I have heard Gothic but I haven't started on Anathema yet. Havent heard of those other guys.
Of the 4 I've heard so far (Turn Loose, Angel, Dreadful Hours and A Map) my favorite is definitely The Dreadful Hours.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 24 August 2018 19:27 (five years ago) link
It’s interesting to read your experience with them, I was a huge fan of them from the debut onwards and most of their contemporaries when this gothic/doom/death thing absolutely exploded, easily a hundred bands got signed around 91-94 with the same formula, but the bonanza didn’t last that long (Angel And The Dark River was probably the last record that really felt relevant at the time, the metal hype machine had by then moved on to black metal and Gothenburg-style melodeath).
But MDB returned after a short stylistic detour and steadily kept making excellent records way after everyone else had sunk into oblivion (bands like Sadness, Orphanage, Paramaecium, Decomposed, Ceremonium etc) or changed style completely (Celestial Season, The Gathering, Paradise Lost, Nightfall, Katatonia, Anathema).
― Siegbran, Sunday, 26 August 2018 20:21 (five years ago) link
I really liked Feel the Misery despite the ridiculously on the nose title
― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Sunday, 26 August 2018 20:33 (five years ago) link
A bit let down by Light At The End Of The World. A few good songs, mostly at the end. Seems to have been remastered a few years after its first release.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 10 May 2019 16:36 (four years ago) link