Yes, this may only be a 3 song EP, but that doesn’t mean it’s only 10 minutes long. In fact, the title track takes care of that all by itself, while the other 2 songs average out at 6 minutes apiece. Just six months since they released ‘The Ghost Of Orion’, My Dying Bride appear to have kept themselves busy during the extended lockdown up north.
Lena Abé’s heavy, resounding bass is soon joined by Andrew Craighan and Neil Blanchett’s guitars on title track and opener “Macabre Cabaret”. The guitars have a lovely buzzing quality about them that lend themselves to both of Aaron Stainthorpe’s vocal ranges, the bittersweet clean and the angry growls, while Shaun Macgowan’s accompanying keyboards add the required atmospherics to give the song the melody and malaise expected from a My Dying Bride song.
As is to be expected, I really love Andrew’s guitar bends and squealing false harmonics on “A Secret Kiss”, along with Aaron’s slow deliberate vocal melody, but it’s when he drops in the death growls over the heavier guitars that the song comes to life. Before settling back down to the steadier guitar riffing and typically haunting clean vocals for much of the song.
Shaun’s piano piece that opens “A Purse Of Gold And Stars” flows perfectly, allowing Aaron’s softly spoken lyrics to gently increase their cadence as Jeff Singer’s drum tempo does the same, while the keyboards grow in grandeur to fill out the sound. Ending on single notes played on the piano to increase the feeling of melancholy.
Yes, it’s short, and it leaves you wanting more, but that’s probably because of how good it is.
(8/10 Marco Gaminara)
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