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A LINE OF DEATHLESS KINGS

My Dying Bride

Tech/Extreme Prog Metal


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My Dying Bride A Line of Deathless Kings album cover
3.57 | 46 ratings | 6 reviews | 20% 5 stars

Excellent addition to any
prog rock music collection

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Studio Album, released in 2006

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. To Remain Tombless (6:06)
2. L'Amour Detruit (9:08)
3. I Cannot Be Loved (7:04)
4. And I Walk with Them (6:37)
5. Thy Raven Wings (5:22)
6. Love's Intolerable Pain (6:14)
7. One of Beauty's Daughters (5:40)
8. Deeper Down (6:28)
9. The Blood, the Wine, the Roses (8:21)

Total Time 61:00

Line-up / Musicians

- Aaron Stainthorpe / vocals
- Andrew Craighan / guitar
- Hamish Glencross / guitar
- Sarah Stanton / keyboards
- Adrian Jackson / bass

With:
- John Bennett / drums

Releases information

Artwork: Matthew Vickerstaff

CD Peaceville - CDVILEF 150X (2006, UK)

2LP Peaceville ‎- VILELP150 (2006, UK)
2LP Peaceville ‎- VILELP519 (2014, UK)

Thanks to J-Man for the addition
and to Quinino for the last updates
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MY DYING BRIDE A Line of Deathless Kings ratings distribution


3.57
(46 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(20%)
20%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(41%)
41%
Good, but non-essential (28%)
28%
Collectors/fans only (11%)
11%
Poor. Only for completionists (0%)
0%

MY DYING BRIDE A Line of Deathless Kings reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Bonnek
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars After three consecutive high-quality MDB albums, the band sounds depleted of energy on A line of Deathless Kings. A String of Lifeless Songs may have been a better title.

Still this is not a bad album, not at all. MDB returned to the idiom of The Angel And The Dark River, refraining from grunts entirely and focussing on slowly brooding melodies of doom and gloom. But without his gruff vocals, Aaron Stainthorpe is a challenging listen. His clean voice is so limited and morose that even I get weary of it after a couple of songs. So while I could listen and enjoy any of the songs of this album, all of them consecutively is a burden that is hard to take. MDB is much better if they alternate between mournful crooning, vicious rasps and deep growls. The last track, of which the last 30 seconds end in a furious outburst of blast beats and cookie-monster vocals offers a welcome but much too short relief.

A line of Deathless Kingsis an average MDB album with good songwriting but too much sameness to match up to the creative peak they had reached on the preceding albums. Worth checking out for their fans and especially for admirers of The Angel And The Dark River album.

Review by UMUR
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars "A Line of Deathless Kings" is the 9th full-length studio album by UK doom metal act My Dying Bride. The album was released in October 2006 by Peaceville Records.

The music on the album is the sound of My Dying Bride as we know them. Crushingly heavy riff, melodic leads and themes, catchy heavy rythms and of course the melancholic and paatos filled vocals by Aaron Stainthorpe. Shortly before entering the studio to record the album drummer Shaun Taylor-Steels announced his departure from My Dying Bride. He had persistent problems with his ankle that forced him to quit the band. Session drummer John Bennett (The Prophecy) replaced him and does a great job. He even manages to put his own touch to the recordings. I really enjoy both his playing and the sound production of his drums on "A Line of Deathless Kings". While long time member and bassist Adrian "Ade" Jackson plays the bass on the album, this would be his last recording with the band. He left in January 2007 and moved to America.

The tracks are as always well written, performed with passion and add to that a professional and well sounding sound production and you got a quality product. I wouldnīt say My Dying Bride have developed their sound radically, but as with all their albums theyīve tweaked their ideas to make the sound on this album unique compared to the rest of their output. Itīs a delicate art but once again theyīve succeeded. The thing thatīs most obvious upon first listen is that "A Line of Deathless Kings" features very few growling vocals. In fact itīs only the track "Deeper Down" where the growling vocals are present and in a very short section in "Love's Intolerable Pain". Itīs a quite interesting choice as the band had actually begun to incorporate growls more and more into their music over the course of the last couple of albums (the last 3 to be exact) after that vocal style had been gone from their music for a couple of albums before that. But a bit surprisingly to me, the growling vocals arenīt missed (and I usually enjoy the contrast between the growling and the clean vocals) and that is in large part due to the memorability of the melody lines. This was probably the most memorable and accessible vocal lines and melodies written by the band up until then. The passion behind the vocal performance on this album is also exquisite. Aaron Stainthorpe pours his soul into the songs and it works wonders.

My Dying Bride are amazingly consistent. Even this far into their career there are only very few of their albums where the quality has dropped slightly (and I mean slightly). Other than those brief moments, their output has been of consistently high quality. "A Line of Deathless Kings" is no different in that respect and among their strongest releases yet. The tracks are well written and intriguing, the production is powerful and the musicianship is excellent. My Dying Bride are arguably one of the few leaders of their genre and "A Line of Deathless Kings" is just another demonstration of power that will leave the followers kneeling in the dust, just hoping that they can be like My Dying Bride when they grow up. A 4 - 4.5 star rating is fully deserved.

Review by kev rowland
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Reviewer
4 stars If you want some incredibly powerful and dynamic hard rock music that has its feet firmly in doom but somehow has managed to transcend that genre then you ought to search this out. That there is a sledgehammer always in attendance is never in doubt but it is being wielded with great skill so that the walnut at times is gently cracked in two whereas at others it is demolished totally. The vocals can be very gentle or with an edge, the riffs can be slow or something far more dramatic and intense.

There is a heightened level of atmosphere with this album, rock music that is seemingly far more than just that. These guys have been plying their trade for more than 15 years and they are certainly showing no sign at all of resting on their laurels with an album that is the best I have ever heard from them. This is metal that everything going for it, as the band experiment, yet keeps the guitars right in your face and keep the emotion dripping throughout. This is a powering statement and one that all fans of the heavy metal, whatever the sub genre, ought to seek out. www.peaceville.co.uk

Review by Warthur
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars Is "Deathless" in the album title a clue? I ask because right after My Dying Bride had completed a triumphant return to death-doom on the previous three albums, they once again banished the death metal influences from their sound.

In fact, A Line of Deathless Kings represents perhaps their most purely doom metal offering up to that point - recall that earlier doom releases such as the run of albums from Turn Loose the Swans to Like Gods of the Sun included a significant influence from darkwave music. That's not so here - unlike, say, Turn Loose the Swans, which at points seemed poised to abandon metal entirely, this is a doom metal album through and through.

This stylistic shift seems to have yet again refreshed this chameleonic band, the gang once again avoiding the trap of continuing to push one particular style or another to the point of tedium. Out of all of the original "Peaceville Three", My Dying Bride has consistently remained within the wider sonic universe of doom metal, but has with equal consistency managed to constantly find new ways to revise and refresh their sound in that sphere. If you want a role model for how a band can constantly evolve and develop their sound without losing touch with their roots, My Dying Bride would be an excellent candidate.

Latest members reviews

3 stars Stepping aside from recreated heaviness of last 3 MDB releases, this one is more rooted in doom metal and more melodic rock. There is less progressivism and epics but still plenty of moments to discover upon repeated listens. There are hardly any growling sections until you arrive at the last so ... (read more)

Report this review (#2287856) | Posted by sgtpepper | Tuesday, December 17, 2019 | Review Permanlink

2 stars Running on empty. After the excellent Songs Of Darkness album from 2004, My Dying Bride returned in 2006 with this album. And with an album which is pretty close to being a turkey. At best, My Dying Bride is an excellent band. Their sound is normally very good and this band can really deli ... (read more)

Report this review (#452164) | Posted by toroddfuglesteg | Thursday, May 26, 2011 | Review Permanlink

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