Generally speaking, I am a person that loves surprises - only the pleasant ones of course, and that is exactly what I perceive to be the most accurate way of describing My Dying Bride's latest live CD/DVD release "An Ode To Woe". While the Yorkshire outfit is currently in Manchester's Futureworks studios working on the successor to “A Line Of Deathless Kings", which is to become the band's 10th studio album, Peaceville found the opportunity to release yet another impressive product of this unique band - one that will not only satisfy fans of Atmospheric Metal, as each of the band’s unique products seem to do, but also one that will make the anticipation of the release of the new album slightly more bearable.

When it comes to live recordings, most bands seem to believe that what they ought to be doing is to present their listeners with products of 'impeccable quality' - quality that you can only really associate with studio recordings. The result of this strategy is that when you finally get to see one of these bands in a live environment, the tears that will eventually fill your eyes are not of joy for having witnessed a unique show, but the result of sheer disappointment. The show that was recorded at Amsterdam's legendary "Paradiso" venue for the purpose of this release, on the contrary, is not only representative of My Dying Bride's amazing live skills but also comes across as an honest release whose few insignificant ‘imperfections’ (keyboard intro in "The Cry Of Mankind") only add to its overall charming character.

A comparison between "An Ode To Woe" and the band's previous live effort "The Voice of The Wretched" (2002) will certainly favour the former and understandably so, seeing as it is clearly a far more complete and impressive release. Not only does it provide you with both an audio and video version of the show, the latter including as bonus track the band's early classic "The Forever People", but also presents the buyer with a better quality digipack format, beautiful artwork and the lyrics to each song - quite an unusual thing for most modern live albums.

As far as the set list is concerned, what you get is a balanced presentation of both old & new classics by the band’s new but very tight line up so the fact that three of the presented compositions, namely "The Cry Of Mankind", "The Snow In My Hand" and "She Is The Dark", were also included in "The Voice of The Wretched", should not be seen as a negative thing. These crowd-pleasers have managed to blend perfectly well with killer performances of most recent classics such as "Catherine Blake", "Thy Raven Wings" (perhaps my favourite moment of the show) and "The Dreadful Hours", reminding me that I will have to wait till September this year before I enjoy a similar experience as part of an attending audience.

The only thing that I found this live album to be lacking is a positive participation by the Dutch crowd, but having seen quite a few gigs in beautiful Holland, I know that this has more to do with the way these predominantly tall Europeans tend to express themselves rather than with band's performance. Had this album been recorded in a country like Greece or Spain, the crowd would have almost certainly added that extra 'ingredient' that would have enabled me to give "An Ode To Woe" the highest possible rating, but even so there is no reason why you should not enjoy this live product of a band that has been dominating the interest of fans of Atmospheric Metal for the last twenty years!

****½

Review by John Stefanis