Customer Reviews

Dreadful Hour

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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

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.

... 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.

After spending many delicious and thoughtful hours listening to "The Light At The End Of The World" and wondering how deeper could these British guys dig into, Peaceville surprises me by sending "The Dreadful Hours" beautiful digipack (artwork and design by Mr. Aaron himself) for review - and what a wonderful surprise it was for me! Being an all-time My Dying listener to the bone and waiting for this task to finally reach my hands I first listened to the CD with great anxiety on a travel I've done by train to the north of my country, some 40 minutes after I was deeply sleeping while subconsciously collecting the newest work from the Yorkshire fellows... The first sensation springing up in me when awaking and thinking about the music was of integrity - and I still think that's the best term I've found since then.
With this album My Dying Bride assembled a concise and very strength position. "The Dreadful Hours" isn't more of one hour of music but when listened and carefully tasted as a whole it certainly feels as a lot more than just that. It's a long and stretched piece of heart-fullness filled up in every corner and with a very rounded craftsmanship. "The Light At The End Of The World" was flexible and evocative of the past, a bit more balanced and heavy than what MDB deliver and almost as a revenge and alert for what was coming up - "The Dreadful Hours" seems to me as a recapitulation of a great part of what MDB is all about, the song-structures reflect in great part the wholeness of the previous albums, with vocalist Aaron singing in a carefully tone and approaching the lyrical side with the same ingredients and themes we're all very well accustomed, that is: tragic love, sin, and lots of metaphors. The voice keeps tired, sad and with a lot of feeling, Aaron has just the perfect melancholic tone for this type of depressive mood that characterises MDB. Yet, this was never a band one can listen all the time, it creates a very special disposition and I'm sure it touches each listener in a different, and personal, way. Words cannot possibly do justice to MDB's music. The violin is after all not an essential instrument for the band, because they're able to produce the same atmospheres without it, which was proved in the predecessor, and here we have a definite stand.
Tumultuous and romantic are tracks such as "A Cruel Taste Of Winter", or "The Deepest Of All Hearts" which truly leave me ecstatically and waiting for more agony to be spawned from the continuous guitar-riffs. If you're looking for an album with lots of singles, you're not going to get that from MDB, "Return To The Beautiful" (ending track), is a superb new version of this classic song and a pretty good example of what I've just said, this 14 minutes heavy ballad shows what MDB have always been, only more so. Indeed, they're just doing what they do better and if you ask me it's miserably alright to accept that! Now the dreadful river has reached the ocean, lets just hope My Dying Bride can sustain their wonderful career the same way they've been doing until now. Splendid!
Abyss Magazine @ Nuno M. [CR]

If you're into dreadful, depressing, heartfelt, somber, gloomy death/doom/goth metal, this should be high on your "to buy" list. By far MDB's album, (respectively, next to "Angel and the Dark River") 2001's "The Dreadful Hours" saw a return to the majestic mood of "Turn Loose the Swans". The classic MDB formula remains intact with its saddening guitar melodies, Aaron's crooning clean vocals and tortured roars fronting the atmospheric keys. If you sit back and listen to this album, you can imagine a rainy night in a desolate city, seeing a melancholic stranger walk the street, drenched in ice-cold rainwater and his own tears. Many of the lyrics in the songs play out as songs themselves, and these are far from cliche "heartbreak" lyrics. This is true emotion and depression that could come from only MDB. Aaron's poetic and beautiful lyrics speak of a tormenting past and heartbreak-induced feelings of suicide... Not a happy man, and that clearly shows in the music.

But the doom and gloom permeating this album enchants like no other doom metal band could. MDB never stay at one tempo like many doomsters do. They experiment around with some up-tempo rhythms, but maintain the atmosphere that is so well-acheived on this album. The guitars utilize some tasteful effects, and the crushing death metal parts somehow fit in with the gothic harmonizations. This shows best on "The Raven and the Rose", easily one of MDB's best songs. The drums seem a but haphazard at some points, and go off doing their own thing at times, seeming to lose focus, thus some of the later songs and longer passages seem to meander. But the album as a whole does not suffer, and even the longer songs never seem to bore.

1. The Dreadful Hours- Haunting lyrics... The song starts out with a desolate melody repeating itself with the sound of rain, and then kicks a few minutes later in with a funeral dirge tempo and Aaron's agonized crooning, later building into a chugging, forceful death metal passage with some great growling. This is a great opening song and sums up the album well. 5/5

2. The Raven and the Rose- Starts out fairly heavy with some crunchy guitars and ferocious growls. It later slows down with some soothing clean vocals. The pianos near the end are aboslutely mesmerizing... Which busts into my favorite part of the song of sore melodies on the guitar. Another set of great lyrics, and my favorite on the album. 5/5

3. Le Figille De Tempesta- Meh... This song didn't do much for me. The song structure is rather predictable and repetitive, and the song doesn't really change that much from its slow marching tempo and sub-par guitar melodies. A slow part here, a heavy part there... Pass this track. 2/5

4. Black Heart Romance- The shortest song on the album, and definitely one of the more haunting, especially with the pseudo-dominatrix lyrics and strangely sexual mood. A fair song I'd say, but not too special. 4/5

5. A Cruel Taste of Winter- Amazing keyboards and guitars here... In fact, it's just an all-around great performance. The crunchy guitars perfectly contrast Aaron's haunting clean vocals, even though the song picks up later on. Another of my favorites on the album. 5/5

6. My Hope, The Destroyer- A bit faster than the others and has some great guitar melodies, and amazing lyrics as well. Another great song. 5/5

7. The Deepest of All Hearts- Probably the heaviest song on the album. Definitely a crushing track. If you're wanting an estimation of what the album sounds like, this is the song to download. 4/5

8. The Return to the Beautiful- A re-make of an older MDB song. It's definitely more crushing, tighter, and much more aggressive than the previous version. Also a very aggressive song... (This one has some blastbeats near the end! Woah!) An epic closer. 5/5

I would reccommend other MDB albums with this, mainly "Angel and the Dark River". Reccommended to fans of goth metal, and to fans of Katatonia.

....atmosphere. Atmospheric album. Yes, you've heard this term.. but what does it mean? To me, it is a series of sounds and songs that literally sends you to another place. The crowning achievement - the Magnum Opus - of My Dying Bride's expressive movements is the latest epic. This album opens with atmospheric and ambient sounds, and propels you straight into the emotional experience and heart of the artists. "Mother please take me down - I'm sorry your boy is not brave.." Absolutely crushing; tears form at my eyes and I feel out of body when I hear the intensity and utter HONESTY of these vocals, and the music that is in perfect interplay with them. Supreme, Transcendent awe and beauty. I am weaved within the crests and troughs of the music, the heavens and hells, scorn, agony, frustration and anger that presents itself in the panorama of sound.. sometimes I am literally breathless. And then - a peak - an utter climactic moment - when Aaron sighs & breathes "Youre still my lover.... I want only you... goodbye my lover. No sorrow please no tears....." Aetherial, I am adrift somewhere, halfway to heaven, sent there by this majesty. Look above to the celestial empyreans -- this music is a testament to the monument erected by Love that raises you to such a Height -

after couple not so good albums My Dying Bride is back with a true masterpiece. 8 really long tracks (averaging almost 9 minutes each).
It sounds like old good my dying bride. With both soft and deathmetal vocals and occasionally black metal like vocals, which I see as a good thing.
Violin and exceptional keyboard work add good amount of atmosphere.
For me it's probably the best My Dying Bride album so far, and I've been following them since "As the flowers wither".

i've been listening to My Dying Bride for for some time now and i must say this album is a brilliant masterpiece...
it's full of very suicide,sad moments and the hole sound of the album is utterly cold....
even though this cd is sad,it has also really heavy moment and it really haunts the listener.....

1.The Dreadful Hours 9/10.....great track and also a good intro to the album..starts really slow and dark and after a while Aron's voice starts grunting and the whole track explodes...after that it returns to it's slow part..cool
2.The Raven and The Rose 10/10.damn heavy track....the hardest track on the album...the song is full of explosive blast and a very dark,haunting atmosphere...
3.La Figlie Della Tempesta 7/10....probably the average track on the album....has nice lyrics though and it's melodic..
4.Black Heart Romane 8/10...very cool track...it's romantic and Aaron's voice is really nice....
5.A Cruel Taste of Winter 10/10....well now comes the best part..excellent track..sad and beautiful
6.My Hope,The Destroyer 10/10.....outstanding track....probably the fastest track on the album...but it has really gorgeous intros and the keyboard is sadly armonious...a masterpiece..
7.The Deepest of All Hearts 10/10..another standout track...one of the best moments of the album...starts with the grunting voice of Aaron,but after that the infernal choirs and the crying guitars explode making this track a hymn of a funeral..
8.The Return to the Beautiful 8/10..the longest track on the album(over 14 min) and it's a reproduced version of a very old track of the early My Dying Bride...

well overall this cd becomes better every time you listen to it...damn heavy,slow,epic and sad...wich i dont recommend to depressed people

This is surely to please every doom metal fan around. While the last album suffered from a lack of dynamics and mediocre production, this is not the case here. Good riffs abound and the overall sound is tighter than in most past efforts. Sure it's not "Turn loose..." or "The angel...", but it shouldn't! "The dreadful hours" honours the band's past achievements without compromising their uniqueness. A great album by a classic metal band.

But MDB have been doing this for so long this is still worth 4 star's..I have grown up with the BRIDE..and really do appreciate that they have not quit or sold out!!!!

All the BRIDE moment's are here..except they just arent as good as the last album LIGHT..but HELL that was one of the best ever so they did manage to follow it up good!!

Buy it anyway though(just for the first song if anything!!!!)..and everey single other MDB album..I myself have not heard their newest album at all!! I wonder if it is any good?? I would like to know one day!

IT'S MDB..BUY IT UP!!!