Dreadful Hour

My Dying Bride | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 29, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Peaceville UK
• ASIN: B00005Q5LX
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,346 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. The Dreadful Hours

2. The Raven And The Rose

3. Le Figlie Della Tempesta

4. Black Heart Romance

5. A Cruel Taste Of Winter

6. My Hope, The Destroyer

7. The Deepest Of All Hearts

8. The Return To The Beautiful

Editorial Reviews

2001 release and 7th studio album compounding the unparalleled success of the Meisterwerk I & II retrospectives. 8 tracks total. Digipak.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Dying Bride's finest, August 6, 2003

By 

FormerZygote "Opinion" (Right Here, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreadful Hour (Audio CD)

If I think of how many would argue the title of my review. "Turn Loose the Swans" is notoriously labled and My Dying Bride's best and I dont really have any arguement at all "Turn Loose the Swans" is an amazing (omg like) album, but The Dredful Hours is so much more developed, pacing what has been taken up from the experience of slower albums. Arrons voice is at its peak here and a big argument people have about the violin not present in this album doesn't change a thing, it is so compensated and then some with the superb writing and playing of this album.
I would recomend this album as the first My Dying Bride album to start with, then I would go to "Turn Loose the Swans" for the diffrence in accesability can change a new listeners interest really quickly. "Turn Loose the Swans" is definately much faster more raw and more cathartic then "The Dredful Hours"

My Dying Bride is not as god awefully depressing as many will have it, yet it is deep, dark and the music is intense and fluidly progressive which makes for great background, foreground and general mood in any car or room.

This album (and band) are a must for anyone that like their music progressive; the tracks are long and the general ambiance of thier music takes time to wander in. Any fans of Neurosis would know exactly what I mean.

Love it up. My Dying Bride are great and this and "Turn Loose the Swans" are both easily 5 star albums while their others are much more towards 4 stars but still extremely enjoyable

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Give it a few spins before you make up your mind about this!, December 18, 2001

By 

B. Frey "Doomlord" (Prairie Village, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dreadful Hour (Audio CD)

I've read elsewhere that that sitting through all 70+ minutes of this album can be tiring. And after my first listen of this marathon album, I was in full agreement. I don't know if it was from overexposure from the couple of best of/rarities packs that just flew by like shadowy bats, or if these songs just weren't up to snuff. But, like all great albums, this sucker will grow on you like nothing else. After my 10th listen, "The Dreadful Hours" is definately going to be in the upper echelon of my Top 10 of 2001 list.

Sounding more enthused and driven than they have in years, MDB have focused on their strengths this time. Tracks like 'The Raven & The Rose' and the awesome 'My Hope, The Destroyer' are as relentlessly morose as anything the band have produced, but somehow there's a sense of urgency and energy here which recent albums have sorely lacked. The complex piano and violin arrangements to be found in earlier My Dying Bride releases are now a thing of the past, leaving the music focused far more on the guitars. This is by no means a bad thing, as the heavy riffs are rib-crushingly effective while the melodic sections are painfully haunting and emotional in tone. Take the emotional wreckage witnessed on "The Angel and the Dark River," the gothic brilliance of "Like Gods of the Sun" and the death metal savagery of "As the Flower Withers" and, in part, you have "The Dreadful Hours." The only gripe I have, and I am slowly growing out of this, is Aaron's clean vocals at times are borderline irking, being slightly out of key, not in a doomy sense, but more of a tone-deaf sense. His death vocals, on the other hand, are nothing short of supreme. The truth is, doom metal is what My Dying Bride does best and even nearly a decade later, no one does it better.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MDB best album yet., September 29, 2002

By 

"karhgath" (canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreadful Hour (Audio CD)

... MDB started with a very trashy/doom album and evolved into this. I am a big fan of MDB, but, to date, they had no 'perfect' album yet. Each one, from flower withers to light at the end of the world all were excellent, but were missing something.

Turn Loose the Swan was superb, but it seemed too 'quick'. There was no soul in it. The album wasn't flowing. It was some truly excellent tracks put together on a CD.

The Angel and the Dark River totally changed that. It was a soul in itself. However, the awesome death voice of Aaron was missing, and the depth, even with the violon, wasn't as good as Turn Loose. However, it was flowing beautifully, and was emotionaly filled.

Then Like Gods of the Sun was released upon us, and it was great... until I got tired of it. There are some awesome songs on it, but some are 'so-so', even 'filler' material(which is still better than most things on the market). It was also too 'metallish', mix of Metallica/Black Sabbath and The Angel And the Dark River. Also, it wasn't an album as much as a collection of songs to me. For me, it's their less interesting album.

After that, they did a 180 degree turn and released the much controversial 34.744...% Complete. I must say I really liked it. It was very very good in my opinion. It was totally non-MDB like, but on ther other hand, it was. It was a very good, but still experimental album. It was on a class of it's own.

Then, maybe due to pressure mixed with a will to go back to their roots, they released The Light at the End of the world. However, I wasn't 100% satisfied. The album seemed to have been rushed, and they tried too much in my opinion. The songs were good, but unrelated to each others, there was no flow. And there are some 'filler' matterial on it too. It was a better Like Gods of the Sun, with death vocal. However, it was only a taste of things to come... I should have known.

When I lost all hope on them to released a truly excellent album, a glimpsed we had with the experimental 34% Complete, they released this album. It's magnificient. I cannot praise it enough. It's MDB's apogee, what they were searching all this time. I cannot find any flaws on this album. None. This is 100% MDB. They achieved perfection, for them. They took everything they did before and learned. They took all the best, and left everything 'bad' on the side. The album flows, from the first song to the last. There are no 'lows' and 'highs'. Everything is on the same scale. Each songs are different, but related. The emotional level is very high on the whole album. You could cry on all the tracks, especially songs like The Deepest of All Hearts. The production, as always, is excellent, and even more so. There are some awesome 'envionmental' effects, and the bass/drum are super crisp. The mix of death/clean vocal is more than perfect, each actually adds to the song, instead of just being there for fun as in The Light... Each vocals play an important role in the songs, each has a different character/personality/emotion. The vocals play each other. This is truly genial. One note too... What did they do to the drum? For the first time in MDB history, the drum actually adds to the music, and is actualy very very good. It's innovative, off-beat, complexe and not the same old drum they used to do.

With this album, MDB matured. I am sure they are very very happy with this album. They did the perfect MDB album. I am wondering, what could they do next? They've set a pretty high standard for themselves now: perfection.