Feel the Misery My Dying Bride Artist

{|My Dying Bride|} celebrate their 25th anniversary with {|Feel the Misery|}, their 13th studio album. It is a return of sorts, to a place or early inspiration: Academy Studios in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, the birthplace of such albums as {|Turn Loose the Swans|} and {|The Angel & the Dark River|}, where they defined their depressing, particularly British brand of doom metal. Original guitarist {|Calvin Robertshaw|} has also returned to the fold, replacing {|Hamish Glencross|}; this is his first appearance with {|MDB|} since 1999's {|The Light at the End of the World|}. {|Feel the Misery|} is drenched with more than an hour of beautifully written, bleak gothic heaviness. Guitarist {|Andrew Craighan|} wrote nearly all of the melodies here, returning to the feel of the '90s with modern production values. It was recorded by {|Dan Mullins|} -- who also plays drums -- and mixed by {|Mags|} and {|Craighan|}. Opening track and first single And My Father Left Forever is a showcase for the band's signature dual-guitar sonics and {|Aaron Stainthorpe|}'s clean vocals. Each word is colored with oppressive sadness and hunger: When I wake up/I want to see you/Bring me the life within you/I charge myself off your body/But in my arms/The darkness deepensâ?¦. To Shiver in Empty Halls is {|Robertshaw|}'s sole writing contribution and it's killer. It commences with a slow, gothic, dual-axe riff accented by explosive double-bass drums and cymbals. {|Stainthorpe|}'s lyrics, expressed in a dirty, growled echo in the spirit of poet {|Charles Baudelaire|}'s Les Fleur Du Mal without quoting it: Wickedness with beauty/Is the devil's hook baited/Darkness is loneliness/With shadows tall and grim/And histories in sin. The title cut weaves keyboards and {|Shaun MacGowan|}'s strings head on into a death metal guitar attack. {|Stainthorpe|}'s clean singing balances the tension, every syllable is articulated with defiance. The doomed-out I Celebrate Your Skin is ripe with unholy lust and emotional malevolence. The vocalist switches between clean and dirty vocals but the band walks a processional in its riffing and rhythms. Closer Within a Sleeping Forest is the perfect bookend. Synths and melodic guitars wind around one another above a skeletal snare and bass drum, with {|Lena Abe|}'s bassline humming through the center of the mix. {|Stainthorpe|}'s vocals rise with glacial slowness, they're alternately mournfully sad and clean and fierce and filthy with jealous rage. This doppelgaenger seeks to possess the beloved at all costs -- including murder. The track's drama builds in force and tempo until it crashes to an abrupt close. {|Feel the Misery|} is the sound of a band inspired, revitalized, focused, and relevant. This album may have been a gift to the band itself after 25 years, but in the end, it is a significant one, not only for the band's fans but for anyone who enjoys classic doom metal. ~ Thom Jurek