SONGS OF DARKNESS, WORDS OF LIGHT

Ok I admit. I'm losing all my wits from album covers with decapitated naked women. There can be no other explanation for my high ratings of specifically those MDB albums with nudity content. This particular one is my MDB favourite and rates 4.5 severed heads.

The opening is majestic: thundering drums, heavy orchestral chords and sinister vocals open The Wreckage of My Flesh. Clean vocals, harmonic guitar and dark symphonic keyboards take over. The song maintains a slow doom metal pace but the music is very melodic and varied. Never overtly virtuosic but competent and precise, with almost 9 minutes it takes a couple of listens till it fully sinks in. On top of that, Aaron's clean vocals are as much an acquired taste as his black and death growls; they are very plaintive, monotonous and nasal but suit the music just fine.

The Scarlet Garden features all MDB ingredients and their typical epic song build up. Starting with a slow doom opening with heavy riffs and morose vocals, a second theme with clean guitar picking takes over until a heavier part answers again, a faster rocking section with death vocals sits in the middle. The clean guitars take over but do not simply repeat their first appearance. Beautiful strings are added taking the song into a splendid ending. If you though I was describing an Opeth song, you're not far off. MDB sure inspired Opeth, the similarities are evident. Bear in mind though that MDB never reach the level of musicianship that Opeth does. MDB's approach is more minimalist and bleak.

One of the most gripping songs is My Wine In Silence. It takes a clean start with guitar plonking that sits somewhere between The Cure and post-rock. The mesmerizing atmosphere is broken with an alternate theme with shrieking vocals over a dead-evil riff with clean guitars, giving it a very terrifying and spine chilling effect. The second part reprises the two main themes but with heavy doom guitars. MDB had always been very clever at arranging their songs with more then the basic metal components. On The Prize of Beauty the organs are the eye-catcher, it's a bombastic epic that combines mid paced death metal and more melodic slower parts.

If you were still waiting for some catchy verse-chorus doom metal, you'd better give up. MDB steer their music in whatever direction the songs demand. The two closing tracks are magnificent adventures, with creepy Lord of The Rings atmospheres, uncanny orc voices and dark vapours of doom. Probably completely over the top for normal people but MDB manage to avoid becoming a vulgar pastiche. They don't force themselves to sound any different then the music that boils up in their dark decadent minds. The three closing minutes of A Doomed Lover are a continuous repetition of two instrumental harmonic themes but the effect is simply stunning and equals the devastating power of the closing minutes of Opeth's Blackwater Park.

Songs of Darkness is an astounding MDB album that balances out perfectly between their melodic, morose and dark epic tendencies. It has both heavy progressive doom death and subtlety, beauty and grimness. It's more digestible then the first albums and an excellent introduction to the band. Recommended to people that would find a mix of Opeth and Sabbath fronted by Gollem an alluring idea.