Band: My Dying Bride
Title: For Lies I Sire
Label: Peaceville Records
Distribution: Suburban
Release date: 23/03/2009
Review: CD

My Dying Bride need no introduction anymore. Personally, I’ve always admired this band’s unique Art of Doom, because of the deep level of elegance and passion the band injects into their hymns of grief and pain. It’s stupid to discuss about the 34.788 % … Complete-album, because, after twenty years, My Dying Bride still are the only masters of cold, melancholic majesty, and that album, well, was somewhat different, that’s all.
As a matter of fact, My Dying Bride have never recorded the same album again. Throughout the years, each album (For Lies I Sire is the band’s tenth studio album) was different, yet each time again it was clearly a My Dying Bride-creation. Their sound is unique and not one single band is able to perform what this band does. And yes, the same (different yet certainly recognizable) goes for For Lies I Sire.
The album lasts for almost an hour and was recorded by long-time producer Mags (Solstice, Anathema, Primordial, Mourning Beloveth, Bal Sagoth amongst others) at Futureworks, Manchester (UK). The album, logically, continues the path A Line Of Deathless Kings went, as well as (almost) each former album, yet again there are huge differences, even though it’s impossible to define those subtle details perfectly. The ingenious use of a violin is of importance again (by Katie Stone, known from the avant-garde Black Metal formation A Forest Of Stars), and of course the grandiose keyboard lines (+ piano; also by Katie, by the way) bring that majestic splendour. Initially I was sad about the departure of drummer Shaun, because he had such a unique drum sound, but new member Dan Mullins, aka Mr. Storm Monolith (The Axis Of Perdition, The Enchanted, Kryokill, ex-Bal Sagoth, ex-Epitaph, ex-Broken, etc…), is a worthy successor with a drum approach that goes well with the melodies and rhythm. Vocally, Aaron Stainthorpe still mourns, he mourns, he mourns over and over again, sweet words of lust and loss. The timbre of his melodic-melancholic vocals has widened again, and from time to time these choral experiments are surprisingly successful. The blackish screams and death grunts are used only sporadically, but even without grunts or screams My Dying Bride succeed to create some of the heaviest, most extreme parts they ever did. And it’s unbelievable how natural it sounds, this interaction between semi-acoustic, fast-aggressive, melancholic, semi-romantic, atmospheric and energetic parts. And what’s more, the whole is covered within a somewhat erotic energy-field.
The few experimental moments (vocally and instrumentally, in rhythm and tempo, old school versus timeless, old-warm, etc) and the characterizing My Dying Bride-ingredients make For Lies I Sire a ‘typical’ My Dying Bride-album, and even though I think it is certainly not the band’s best recording ever, I cannot but express my appreciation for this superior Doom Epic.

92/100

Ivan Tibos.