Review of My Dying Bride - For Darkest Eyes (DVD)

These British Doom Metalers have been around for about 10 years now, and I have to say they're one of the few bands of the genre I enjoy, so getting a chance to finally see what they would be like live was quite exciting. I'm guessing the chances of them coming over here any time soon for a U.S. tour is unlikely although I'm still hoping for one in support of the new album, The Dreadful Hours. Or at least a Metalfest appearance in the near future would be nice. Anyways, on to the dissection. This DVD includes all of My Dying Brides music videos to date. The first three videos for Symphonaire Infernus, The Thrash of Naked Limbs, and Songless Bird are all really low budget videos and it truly shows. In the first, they resort to flashing spinning pictures at you while showing some video of this guy's boots walking through some watery mud as the song just plays in the background. Very uninteresting. Finally with I Am the Bloody Earth the budget started to get bigger, and the final two videos for The Cry of Mankind and For You are really cool; For You being my favorite. The Cry of Mankind was an interesting video watching lead singer, Aaron, walk around dressed up as Jesus. For You was a bit more to my liking with the guys decked out in all black, jamming in a dirty room while this guy is having a seizure on the floor of a flooding bathroom. The video was strange but cool.

The live performance on the DVD is really cool. It's very well produced. The footage is taken from a show in Poland while on tour with Anathema. That show was during 1996, and that brings me to my main complaint with the DVD. What year is it right now? . . . 2002. That means the show is from six years ago. Not one, two, or three; but six. That means you don't get anything off of great albums like 34.778% Complete. . . well on second thought, maybe that's for the better; but what about material from Light at the End of the World, or their newest opus, The Dreadful Hours. You don't even get any songs off of Like Gods of the Sun, by far my favorite album from this band. That's not to say that the set list is bad by any means. It's got all your old favorites from albums like As the Flower Withers and Turn Loose the Swans, but it would just be nice to have gotten to see them perform some of their newer material. At least you get to see Martin (now in Cradle of Filth) perform violin duties and looking as metal as he can while doing so. The extras are nothing to pee your pants over. You can look at the plethora of pictures offered in the gallery section or watch My Dying Bride perform pretty much the same set list as the main show but in different venues and with production that ranges from crappy home video camera style, to some decent professional stuff. It's nothing too exciting. Looking at my review with all the complaints, most are probably wondering why I wouldn't give it a lower score. Well, I know this is probably the closest I'll get to seeing them live, unless they suddenly decide to come here this winter or next year, so that means I get to pretend I'm seeing them live with this DVD. Although you don't get to see them perform anything off of any recent releases, it's still quite an enjoyable experience and would recommend it to any My Dying Bride fan.

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My Dying Bride

For Darkest Eyes (DVD)

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