When last I checked in with Wallingford, Connecticut‘s Redscroll Records, I walked out of there with a cassette copy of Torche‘s Meanderthal Demos. It’s a purchase I still consider the right move to have made, and as my most recent trip there was most likely going to be my last until Springtime, I figured I’d make the best of it. A thorough search of Redscroll‘s used section has done me right on numerous occasions, and this latest was no different. Dig this haul:

Bottom, Made in Voyage
Chrome Locust, Chrome Locust
Clutch, Jam Room
Fu Manchu, Daredevil
Jethro Tull, Aqualung
Lost Breed, Save Yourself
Lost Goat, Equator
My Dying Bride, Turn Loose the Swans
Natas, Delmar
The Obsessed, The Obsessed
Spiritual Beggars, Ad Astra

A few of those CDs I already own, but there are difference. The Fu Manchu is the original Bong Load Records version, where before I only had the reissue, and though it’s my third copy of Jam Room — probably my least favorite Clutch album — it’s the River Road Records pressing, and I think they only made six of them or something, so I was stoked to find it. Ad Astra is the Music for Nations digipak edition, and Chrome Locust is in a jewel case, where I’d only ever seen the digipak, so I grabbed that as well. The Jethro Tull had a sticker on it that it was the first CD issue, which made it too good to pass up. If you’re wondering, by the way, whether or not I believe everything I read on stickers stuck to jewel cases: Yes. Yes I do.

Lost Goat is on Man’s Ruin and I didn’t already own it, so that was a given. The Natas record I thought might have been a different catalog number than mine, but no, it’s a genuine double. I was bummed out on that until the other night when I thought to myself, “Gee, I sure would like to listen to the first Natas album,” and I actually had a copy on me because I was holding onto it to write about today. Maybe one just wasn’t enough.

Of the two Hellhound Records purchases, the highlight is unquestionably The Obsessed‘s The Obsessed. I had the Tolotta reissue previously, but you can’t beat the original. I had seen it for sale on Redscroll‘s eBay store, and asked if I could buy it right there in the shop. They were more than accommodating. The other Hellhound album, Lost Breed‘s Save Yourself, was the US version, where I’d only had the European before. Or maybe that’s reversed. I don’t know. The catalog numbers and back cover art are different. Apparently that’s enough for me these days.

I legitimately hadn’t owned the Bottom or My Dying Bride CDs (or the Lost Goat, which was meh), and I was stoked especially to hear the former, which didn’t disappoint. Crazy to think it’s been five years since Bottom put out their last album, but I suppose it has. Hearing their debut for the first time, it was easy to tell what Rise Above, Man’s Ruin and Small Stone all saw in the band, and by that I mean killer riffs and lethal groove. An excellent capper for an even more excellent haul.

Although I was a fan of My Dying Bride?s latest offering, For Lies I Sire, which Peaceville released this past March, I haven?t found myself going back to it for repeat listens. Entirely possible this is because some of the songs seemed samey and the standouts were few and far between, but more likely I think the album as a whole just didn?t stick with me like I?d anticipated it would. That happens sometimes.

All this, of course, isn?t a comment on the band. My Dying Bride are legends whose track record far surpasses whatever judgments I find myself making one way or the other. The UK doomers have been together since 1990, and they?re still going strong, vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe and guitarist Andrew Craighan (and, since 2000, guitarist Hamish Glencross) crafting lineup after lineup and never managing to lose sight of the melancholic mission of the band. On the stopgap release, Bring Me Victory, that mission is reaffirmed through singling out the title track and accompanying it by some tidbits fans will be thrilled to receive.

?Bring Me Victory? was a highlight of For Lies I Sire, and it works well on its own here, but it was more the cover of traditional English ballad ?Scarborough Fair? that I was excited to hear, wondering if Stainthorpe would tackle the harmonies Simon and Garfunkel brought to the song on their 1966 interpretation of it. He doesn?t, but the song is perfect for his clean vocals nonetheless, and gives new violinist Shaun MacGowan ample opportunity to show why he was included in the band to replace the short-tenured Katie Stone.

Read more »

Straight out of the “Yes, Please” file comes the news that My Dying Bride are recording a new EP tentatively due this fall to be dubbed Bring Me Victory for the track of the same name on their latest album, For Lies I Sire (review here). Story’s on Blabbermouth, but here it is through the magic of cut and paste:

UK doom legends My Dying Bride have been busy at Futureworks studio in Manchester recording material for a new EP. Entitled Bring Me Victory, the effort will include two covers — “Scarborough Fair” and The Swans‘ “Failure.” A new video has been completed as well to support the release. The band states, “An October release date has been penciled in, but this may be put back a little depending on how the last days of recording go.”

What you’ve got to appreciate about monumental UK doomers My Dying Bride — who along with Paradise Lost and Anathema constituted the “Peaceville Three” and helped lay the melancholic groundwork for the European doom movement at large — is that 1990 was a very, very long time ago. 19 years, in fact. Children have been born and graduated high school in that time. And as the two remaining founders, vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe and guitarist Andrew Craighan alone represent a great team, yes, but also one of the most important songwriting duos in metal history.

For Lies I Sire (Peaceville Records) is My Dying Bride‘s tenth full-length, and though “Echoes from a Hollow Soul” may carry that definitive MDB sadness, it’s hardly business as usual across the board. Rejuvenating Stainthorpe, Craighan and longtime guitarist Hamish Glencross are three new, younger players for whom this is their first studio output with the band; bassist Lena Ab?, drummer Dan “Storm” Mullins and keyboardist Katie Stone, who brings with her a violin that has been much missed since MDB‘s earliest days.

That alone would make it easy for this to become a novelty album, but as ever, My Dying Bride play it classy and don’t overdo it, making the instrument more of an accoutrement than a focal point.

Read more »