The seventh full-length by My Dying Bride was titled, “The Dreadful Hours”, released on November 13, 2001 via Peaceville Records.
This is also the bands first release since they took a small hiatus after the release of 1999’s “The Light at the End of the World”. For this release, My Dying Bride returned to their former record label, Peaceville Records (the bands contract was up after the previous release). The band had shopped around for another label, but none could offer the band a better contract, and also the freedoms of artistic expression that Peaceville could and would offer.
“The Dreadful Hours” was somewhat of a return to the bands earlier sound, ala “As the Flower Withers”. It contains a remake of "The Return of the Beautiful" (renamed "The Return to the Beautiful") which was also from the band's debut album, “As the Flower Withers”. “The Dreadful Hours”.
When asked if going back to their roots was intentional and If it meant that there would be no more experimentation, Andrew Craighan said; “No. I think this is the beginning again. We’ve come to a point now that we’re so confident, we’re so full of ourselves, that I think this is almost a new beginning. I think "The Dreadfull Hours" is the beginning of the rejuvenation of My Dying Bride. Not necessarily in popularity but in misery, in what we create musically, lyrically and visually. We’ve got to the stage were we know the limits of what’s going to happen within the band. We don’t make living from the band, which is why we can be exactly what we are and because of it we can be so absolutely free and so absolutely true to ourselves. I honestly believe that the next record will be, if it’s possible, even darker... more sick. There will still be experimentation in a sense that we’ll try, but not to push boundaries because it’s a pointless pursuit for us, but there will be definitely things we haven’t tried before that we’ll attempt to use if they work. I do honestly see a very... I won’t say a bright future because that’s not the right word, but I do see a future for My Dying Bride... but only in the constraints that My Dying Bride normally works. It’s strange but I’m looking forward to the next record already even though this one is not even released yet.”
When asked by MetalBite.com what MDB’s writing process was for “The Dreadful Hours”, Andrew Craighan explained; “In the past we would take full songs and then just record them but over time we’ve learned that in the studio you can have greater control and a wider field of vision of what’s happening. So, now we are going in with the skeleton of the song and then flesh it out. Sometimes we’re even going in with the skeleton and then we eventually remove that completely and end up rewriting it. So, from now on, sometimes we have 75% of the song done and the rest is just spontaneous work in the studio. We just see what happens, which is brilliant because most of the time what does happen is that [which] can’t be planned, it can’t even attempted to be planned. You get the feeling it just works. It’s an amazing feeling. The actual writing process is pretty much this same as always, we’re trying to adjust to the lyrics. Aaron will give us the lyrics and we’ll try to basically create the atmosphere around them to make it work, to make it believable. It can be difficult because he changes the lyrics so often, because he’s always striving to make them a little bit better then they are, and sometimes it makes it difficult for you to write the music to something that’s constantly changing. Overall, we know exactly what we want. We know what My Ding Bride always sounds like so it’s not difficult to get the atmosphere going.”
The album was again engineered by Mags and co-produced by guitarist Andrew Craighan. Between 2003 and 2004, the band's label, Peaceville, re-released their entire back-catalogue in digipak format, with bonus tracks consisting of demos, remixes, and live performances added to each release (except "The Light at the End of the World").
“The Dreadful Hours” was the only album to feature keyboardist Yasmine Ahmed, who performed on the song “"A Cruel Taste of Winter" (keyboards on all other tracks were performed by Jonny Maulding).
When asked about why this was her only contribution for My Dying Bride, Strainthorpe answered; “She (Yasmine) completely disappeared (laughs)! She sent us an e-mail once saying that she couldn’t contribute to the band anymore, but wished us all the greatest luck for the future. That was it! Completely disappeared! I have no idea where she is anymore which is kind of a shame because she was a really, really nice girl, but Lord only knows where she is now.”
Talking about the lyrical concepts for “The Dreadful Hours”, Andrew Craighan gave a detailed explanation, saying; “there are the usual sex, death, and religion sections; we are still pretty much under that umbrella but I think one of the key differences this time lyrically is the fact that a lot of the songs are not as mystical and poetic as it was in the past. Some of them are quite disturbing in a sense of being true to a life’s horror. “The Dreadful Hours” is basically about a murder of a small boy by his father, which is a very disturbing story because the background that it’s set to is simply the boy is scared of the dark and a father is a violent man who has no patience, no tolerance for the small boy.
I’m still wondering about this song, to be honest, because it’s so true that it must have happened somewhere in the world. It’s a little bit too true for My Dying Bride; we haven’t really touched anything quite as close to the bone as this. I think the song itself is one of my favorite songs of all time of My Dying Bride, but the lyrics are very, very sensitive and people could be quite upset with this. I’m not sure that’s what Aaron was intending but when you’re listening to the song and when you sit down with the lyrics too it’s quite disturbing.
We also touch upon the ancient, Greek tragic stories that we used to play in the past. We’ve taken “Le Figlie Della Tempesta” which is an Italian sentence that means ‘Daughters of the Stone’ and that song basically relates to... it’s similar to the Sirens of Odyssues where he’s drawn to Ireland by the song of the sirens. It’s similar to that but it’s not such a mystical point of view, it’s almost like a warning. Be aware of women; make sure you understand what they really want and what they’re doing because otherwise they can be... well, it’s almost a warning. It goes against for what My Dying Bride normally sings about because we normally congratulate women and love them in a romantic way and this is a step into completely different direction; a warning against women, don’t go there, they are dangerous beasts, be extremely careful.
So the lyrics are a little bit schizophrenic in places, not traditional in any manner. Another one, I think worth mentioning is “A Cruel Taste Of Winter” which the original plan for this one was that we’ll play the song live, but each night the lyrics would be completely different. So, every night you would hear a different version, it would be like an exclusive version every night. We liked that idea a lot and we’ve actually practiced it cause we played a couple of gigs in Poland, Belgium, Holland and one gig in England in March. It worked, it worked extremely well but when it comes to the CD, we decided we would really like some lyrics on the CD for this, something definite. So, Aaron basically said, "I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for this one. I’m just going to ramble, I’m going to treat it like I’m insane and I’m going to mumble and I’m going to ramble and I’m going to come up with sentences that don’t mean anything next to the sentence above or below and I want to see what it sound’s like" and he just wrote down everything he thought. And what he wrote down it’s just a rambling of an insane man. It’s clear there’s something wrong with him and yet in the context of the song it works perfectly and yet it shouldn’t work because there is no consistency to it. It’s fucking bizarre how it works. It’s a strange angle on something and it’s a new angle and it works this time, but I’m not sure if we could do it again. I think for me those are some of the key elements on this record. The other stuff is not straightforward, it has differences to it but it is pretty much all in line what My Dying Bride people might be expecting to hear from us.”
Critical Reception:
In his review for AllMusic, William York states;
“While they faltered a little bit toward the late '90s, Doom-Death Metal pioneers My Dying Bride seemed to get a new lease on life (or should that be death?) with 1999's excellent “The Light at the End of the World”, and “The Dreadful Hours” builds on that momentum. Like “The Light”, this is very much a guitar-based album; there are no violins like on their earliest albums, nor are there any electronic forays such as those on “34.7888% Complete”. Also, the keyboards are used sparingly (and tastefully -- these guys could teach some other Goth Metal bands a lesson). The first three tracks showcase the band's diversity and songwriting strength at their best, moving from the quiet, thunderstorm-accompanied guitar introduction of the title track to the galloping Death Metal riffing later in that same song, then proceeding to the especially bitter and venomous vocals on "The Raven and the Rose" and the mournful guitar breaks on "Le Figlie Della Tempesta." The rest of the album isn't quite on the same level as these opening tracks, but throughout the band still shows a real knack for alternating clean and distorted guitar passages and also for using a variety of tempos (although they seldom get especially fast) as well as vocal styles (e.g., growled, sung, spoken, and occasionally screamed).”
York concluded with; “This diversity, as well as the logical flow of ideas from one section to the next, enables the band to write songs that average eight or nine minutes without getting bogged down or boring. True to My Dying Bride's trademark, “The Dreadful Hours” makes for a dreary, somber listening experience, but keeping that in mind, it's also an really well-done and inspired album, especially given how far the band was into their career at this point.”
Note:
This album was dedicated in memory of former Abiosis band member Darren Dickinson. Abiosis was a pre-MDB band that included Rick Miah and Andrew Craighan.
Links to Arrists, Music & Videos:
Click this link to follow My Dying Bride on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyDyingBrideOfficial
Click this link to listen to “The Dreadful Hours” via Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-dreadful-hours/119159615
Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells
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