My Dying Bride Feel the Misery on Feel the Misery

Feel the Misery? My Dying Bride are taking no chances here. On the band’s twelfth studio album, it’s still doom and gloom and, well, misery (feel it!). I mean, the happiest song on the album is called “I Almost Loved You.” Almost. Emo ain’t got nothing on this pain.

Fortunately, MDB dress up their sorrows with gigantic songs, full of growls, whispers (quite a few whispers, actually), lumbering riffs, an excess of synths, some maudlin piano and lyrics like “all you offer is empty faith.”

Actually, pretty much all of that and more can be found “To Shiver in Empty Halls,” one of the album’s many nine-ten minute suites that pummel you with existential dread. The good news is that the more epic tracks here take a lot of chances — vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe can go from a monotone to a hellish shriek, peppering in near spoken word at time.

Meanwhile, big riffs build and fade. Drums chase the music like jazz. Quiet and loud intersect. It’s headphone misery, at least.

It does get a bit much… by the time the group settles in a relatively straight-forward piano ballad (“A Thorn of Wisdom”), you’ll be effing relieved. After twenty-five years, it might be too much to expect the band to find a modicum of happiness, but a little self-reflection (and self-editing) never hurt. You can’t really enjoying the slow burn and heavy spirit of “A Cold New Curse” if you know it’s going to shift in about six minutes (and then shift again).

Good stuff, but play at your own peril. Or funeral.

My Dying Bride’s Feel the Misery is out now on Peaceville. Stream it below and buy it here.