Shows My Dying Bride in their prime (My Dying Bride - For Darkest Eyes (DVD))

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	My Dying Bride - For Darkest Eyes (DVD)
Date:	06/07/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great video and audio quality and great performances, loads of content

Disadvantages: None

'For Darkest Eyes' documents Yorkshire doom merchants My Dying Bride's 1996 performance in Krakow, Poland, offering ten live tracks spanning their (then) career. The video and audio quality is excellent, and the band put in a great performance too. There are plenty of camera angles onstage and off, including a roving camera that swoops down from above the audience from time to time. The video was recorded back when the band lineup still included Martin Powell on violin, adding consideral emotional power to the songs (after his departure the band would replace his parts with keyboards, which did the job but was never the same). The guitars, drums, keyboards, violin and vocals are well-balanced, with each being clearly audible throughout, and singer Aaron Stainthorpe is as melodramatic and tortured a frontman as ever, adopting theatrical, woeful stances as he lets loose a mixture of lamenting howls and and low, powerful, rasping sceams. The band have considerable stage presence, backed up by plenty of dry ice and colourful stage lighting, and the audience respond enthusiastically.

The setlist is also excellent, including some of the best tracks from their raw, early EPs, their seminal album 'Turn Loose The Swans', and also their later, slicker releases 'Gods Of The Sun' and 'The Angel and the Dark River', finally ending with the raw, death metal track 'The Forever People' from their debut album 'As The Flower Withers'. Its a great overview of My Dying Bride's career in what was then its entireity, with the band's raw, lumbering, desolate early works mixing well with their their more softer and commerical guitar-harmony-led later efforts.

Aside from the excellent Krakow gig there are also clips from numerous other earlier performances, including an entire Netherlands gig filmed around the time 'Turn Loose The Swans' was released. Though the sound quality varies here, with an intrusive drum sound permeating the first few tracks, the old footage is all still hugely enjoyable, giving insight into the bands early days when they were still honing their craft but also when their music was at its most emotionally raw.

Then there are all the band's music-videos, again ranging from their endearingly amateurish (visually speaking) early efforts up to the more polished and commericalised recent efforts 'The Cry of Mankind' and 'For You'. On top of this there is a gallery section, with plenty of rare band photos and images of the artwork for all their releases so far, from their first demo onwards.

Overall, it's a great package packed with content and excellent performances, and a must for My Dying Bride fans and fans of gothic doom in general. My Dying Bride have released several other great live DVDs throughout their career, but 'For Darkest Eyes' is the oldest and best.

Main Feature Tracklisting-

1. A Sea to Suffer in 06:11
2. The Songless Bird 06:07
3. Crown of Sympathy 09:47
4. The Thrash of Naked Limbs 06:33
5. The Cry of Mankind 06:53
6. Your River 07:47
7. Black Voyage 09:27
8. Your Shameful Heaven 06:03
9. From Darkest Skies 07:54
10. The Forever People 05:00

Promo Video Tracklisting-

1. Symphonaire Infernus 05:31
2. The Thrash of Naked Limbs 04:39
3. Songless Bird 04:57
4. I Am the Bloody Earth 04:35
5. The Cry of Mankind 04:36
6. For You 04:11

Summary: An excellent dvd, a must for gothic doom fans