THE DREADFUL HOURS

Following on the footsteps of their previous album, in 2001 My Dying Bride completed their full return to form after a couple of full-lengths that had disappointed more than a few fans. The Dreadful Hours is a fantastic album, containing some of the best songs ever written by the British doomsters. Alas, it also contains a handful of songs that I struggle not to see as "fillers". Despite its somewhat uneven tracklist, The Dreadful Hours sits tall in the band's discography as one of their best records to date.

Let's start with the positives. The Dreadful Hours is the culmination of My Dying Bride's slow metamorphosis from death/doom frontrunners to purveyors of a hybrid style halfway between gothic metal and doom. This process of transition had started on their 1995 album The Angel and the Dark River and saw the band increasingly streamlining their songs and injecting more and more accessible melodies into the music. Songs like the title-track, "The Raven and the Rose", "Le Figlie della Tempesta" and "My Hope, the Destroyer" are splendid examples of the musical vision of the Yorkshire band. Deeply melodic, yet incredibly dark and morose (also for the subject matters, such a child abuse on the title-track), these songs perfectly combine the slow-tempos and tortuous guitar riffs of doom with the melodic allure of gothic and dark metal.

What is even more astonishing is how different from one another these songs sound. The title-track starts with an almost post-rock clean guitar riff, before descending in doom/death territory with Aaron Stainthorpe's cavernous growls and Hamish Glencross and Andrew Craighan's lead-like guitars. "The Raven and the Rose" is balanced between furious (and fast!) guitar riffs and a beautifully orchestrated melodic section, with thick swathes of organ and synths and a monstrous performance by drummer Shaun Taylor-Steels, who here truly gives a meaning to the words "drum fills". "Le Figlie della Tempesta" is more atmospheric, almost dark metal, as it dances away on a delicate guitar arpeggio and Aaron's beautiful clean vocals. Meanwhile, "My Hope, the Destroyer" is a gothic beast that again speeds up the tempo relative to the usual sludgy pace of death/doom. All this variation makes The Dreadful Hours one of the most diverse and exciting album the band had written up to that point of their career. It makes for a truly engaging listen, which never bores and surprises again and again with new twists that are ever so tasteful and appropriate.

Alas, the second half of the album does not match the quality of the opening trio of tracks or "My Hope, the Destroyer". "Black Heart Romance", "A Cruel Taste of Winter" and "The Deepest of All Hearts" inhabit more traditional doom territories. There are some surprises and interesting sections (the beautiful clean guitar flourishes on "Black Heart Romance"), but the general feel is one of sluggishness and lack of inspiration. The album closer "Return to the Beautiful" deserves a word apart. This is a re-work of "The Return of the Beautiful" from the band's debut album, As the Flower Withers, when My Dying Bride were firmly playing death/doom metal. Inevitably, this last song stands in stark contrast with the mellower and more sophisticated gothic/doom of the rest of the record. As an album closer this totally backfires as it concludes the record incongruously, with a completely different sound and atmosphere than the rest of the album.

Despite containing hits and misses, The Dreadful Hours is one of my favourite albums from My Dying Bride. Its moments of brilliance far exceed the duller episodes and the diverse nature of his tracks paint a beautiful and exciting picture of the band's sound evolution at the dawn of the new millennium.