AN ODE TO WOE

Plodding on........

Yet another live album. An album more based on their mid-period albums. Unfortunate, this exclude their last two albums. A period where My Dying Bride did not deliver any real good albums. A band in slumber and slightly lost. This is documented on An Ode To Woe.

There is nothing wrong with the songs here. They are all good. But neither is any of the songs here truly great. Hence; the band is just plodding on here. I feel the Wretched live album is one notch, or even three, better than this one. It is a worrying sign when the only really great stuff on this live album is the older songs.

As a documentation of how My Dying Bride was during their mid-period, An Ode To Woe is very good. But thankfully, My Dying Bride has raised their standards and got a new lease of life on their last couple of albums so this live album is just a documentation of a slightly lost band in that period of their career. This live album is neither bad or great. Just good.

3 stars

My Dying Bride's second major live album sounds just a little off to me. I think part of the problem is that the crowd noise seems a little more evident here than is typical in professionally-produced live albums. Whilst I can see the point of a bit of this to help give the live ambience, usually the crowd noise gets isolated for a reason and it's just a little more intrusive here. In addition, the mix isn't what it could be, with the vocals sometimes overwhelmed. Potentially some of the issues come down to this being their first release since founding bassist Adrian Jackson left the band, replaced by Lena Abé, and with Dan Mullins on drums - so if you want to hear them in the process of gelling with a new rhythm section, that's a point of interest, but they'd do better once Abé and Mullins were settled in.