Low-tuned guitars, gloomy keys and pounding drums, the first couple of tones immediately tell you which album is playing on your stereo. In this world where release after release is puked out in your face, you still recognize this band. This typical sound tells you it is My Dying Bride, the masters of doom from Yorkshire, England. Their last studio-album, The Dreadful Hours, was released in 2001, so the patience of the fans was tested very much. As a sop The Voice Of The Wretched was released in 2002, but to me most live-albums get boring after a while. At the beginning of this year the rumour got out that the release of the album was delayed due to artwork problems, so the fans’ patience got tested one more time. Of course the main question is: was it worth waiting that hard? Until this very day I’m still not sure. The artwork is not very spectacular. I got myself the digipack-edition, the one without all the goodies.

There are no pictures in it, except for one silhouette one the left inner-sleeve. In defense you could say that it is part of the bands image (to be as vague as possible that is) and that in the previous releases almost never a picture could be found, but sometimes you’d like know what the band members look like. Musically it’s pretty okay though. It’s like getting home after a long holiday. You know what to expect. However, Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light is also one of those albums that needs multiple listening sessions. It’s not very easy to digest, so to speak. The band masters the art of making true doom and masters that art very fine. So you’ll get a good piece of doom and if you don’t mind the lack of progression, it’s actually a pretty good album, not their best album, but a fine in-your-face doom album.