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intothewellsabyss
Jun 12, 20235 min read

SEVEN DAYS OF BEREAVEMENT: A MY DYING BRIDE RETROSPECTIVE, PART TWELVE.


The eighth full-length by My Dying Bride was titled, “Songs of Darkness, Words of Light ”, released on February 23, 2004 via Peaceville Records.


“Songs of Darkness, Words of Light” marks the debut of keyboardist Sarah Stanton. Initial copies of the album came in a hard clamshell case and featured a double sided poster and a fridge magnet as extras. This tradition was continued for the next album, A Line of Deathless Kings.


The album was actually supposed to be released earlier in 2003, but was delayed due to issues with the albums artwork.


Aaron Strainthorpe explained these issues with Metal-rules.com; “Thats true (that the artwork was the cause of the delay). I was coming up with these images and the band was saying, “Well that’s kind of interesting. Can we develop that into some kind of direction?” (laughs). I really was coming up with these weird and wonderful things and I just couldn’t understand what the band wanted and I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted myself! You could tell that in the images. They weren’t focused. They weren’t going anywhere. Yes, the colors were nice (laughs), but you need something a bit more in depth than that, so when the actual delivery date came up, we still had no artwork! That’s when we said it’s too late and we decided to get someone else to do it. Big apologies to everyone else, but really it was me not being able to come up with the goods, I guess.”


The albums artwork was created by Andy Green, unlike MDB’s earlier releases, which were typically created by Aaron Strainthorpe. Frontman, Strainthorpe explains the artwork and the meaning behind it’s imagery; “He’s a difficult guy to get hold of, Andy Green, and we picked this image simply because it looked nice. I know that sounds like a very simple excuse, but it’s the truth. If there is some hidden meaning or added depth to that image, we haven’t been told yet what it is (laughs). I’m probably going to see Andy to see what’s happening in the picture and where the inspiration came from.”


When asked if the song “Catherine Blake” was about the wife of poet William Blake, Aaron Strainthorpe answered; “(Laughs) No. But everybody has said that, so I kind of wish I had done it really (laughs). From time to time, I like to use a character’s name for a song rather than a title that gives away some form of description of the song. The actual character of Catherine Blake doesn’t really appear much in the song. It’s not about her. She’s more just a cog in the big machine of the music. It’s nice to use a name, though, because people ask, “Who is he?” “Where is she from?” “What’s her history?” “What will happen to her?” Suddenly, just by having a female’s name in the title, it has generated much more interest than if I’d given it a typical doomy title. I never even thought about the William Blake link until it had been recorded and Mags [sound engineer] in the studio asked if there was a connection. It never clicked when I was writing it, but I knew that I was bound to be asked that question in the future. It’s a nice association and I don’t really mind it.”


And, when asked about the inspiration behind “The Blue Lotus”, Strainthorpe explained; “The character is called “The Blue Lotus” as you say, and it’s kind of my attempt at a dark fairy tale. The lyrics on this song could be read without any music at all. It almost reads like, “Once upon a time” “where there’s the story and then they all live happily ever after, only they don’t live happily ever after because it’s My Dying Bride (laughs).” It”s very much fantasy, but “The Blue Lotus” is the name of this “sleeping beauty” character and it all turns a bit nasty towards the very end.”


When asked about what it was like recording the album at Abbey Road Studios, Aaron Strainthorpe said; “It’s kind of scary when you first approach it because, well, obviously, there’s 10,000 Japanese people trying to walk across there (laughs), but when you see the building and you walk through the doors, you think, “WOW! There’s some great history here.” Then it just sort of turns into a regular studio. There’s memorabilia on the main entrance but when you get into your own little recording/mixing area, it’s just generic buttons. There’s nothing there to give any reference to it’s great past. There’s all sorts of people photographing you, hoping you might be somebody famous (laughs). It’s quite a unique place to go.”


For “Songs of Darkness, Words of Light”, MDB recorded a music video for the song “The Prize of Beauty”, the bands first video since 1997’s “I Am the Bloody Earth” from the video album, “For Darkest Eyes“. Here, Strainthorpe talks about that video; “Sadly, it was released before we had time to finish it. It sounds crazy but this is one of the few instances where our artistic integrity was kind of shoved to one side in favor of record label scheduling. This never happens with us. Normally they work very close with us and tell us, “When everyone’s happy, let’s go.” But because the album was delayed for such a long time, the video was going to be delayed by another month and the record label said, “Look, we just can’t do this again. The album is never going to come out.” So, we’ve released a video that, frankly, is unfinished and I think it looks unfinished. A lot of friends who have seen it say it looks great, but then they probably would! It’s basically the band playing their instruments along with the song and that’s basically about it. We were going to add different features because the song is about this guy who is obsessed with a power-crazed woman. It has a kind of S&M feel to it and yet there’s nothing like that in the video. We had ideas, which we filmed, but they haven’t appeared. The guy who’s working on the video, again, Andy Green, is still working on it and it will appear on our DVD, which will be released at the end of the year. Unfortunately the one everyone’s going to get see on MTV is, sadly, just not finished and quite frankly, I would have liked to have held on for a few more weeks.”


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 “Songs of Darkness, Words of Light ” via Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/songs-of-darkness-words-of-light/158001287


Click this link to watch the official music video for “The Prize of Beauty”: https://youtu.be/vmGHTdTIAFQ


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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