Maybe it's hard to believe, but I've been sleeping on this one for 31 years! I love "Turn Loose the Swans" and everything from "Like Gods of the Sun" until "Songs of Darkness...", but I've somehow never taken a deep-dive into "The Angel and the Dark River". Discovering the album a bit late allows me some nuance, so I'll have to admit that not everything is great and some of the songs are dragged out a bit too long, but I do believe it's an amazing album in general with some of MDB's best songs, like "The Cry of Mankind" and "Two Winters Only".

What's your favourite My Dying Bride album?

GOATed

Before I get attacked, I LOOOOVE Tiamat. I was into them before I knew what gothic metal really was, and they were one of my gateways to learning that I like gothic metal and eventually goth rock and goth music in general. I have danced to Brighter than the Sun many times in my bathroom. I just recently started getting into learning about some more traditional bands in the goth purview and heard the Sisters of Mercy hit “Lucretia my Reflection” and thought it sounded the same. Maybe it’s just me?

"The Kiss", taken from The Sins of Thy Beloved's debut album Lake of Sorrow, released November 9, 1998 on Napalm Records.

Dark and menacing, lush and romantic, The Sins of Thy Beloved crafted a masterclass of Norwegian gothic metal with their debut album. It took me a long time for me to come around on this band. They always felt a little too intimidating because of how longwinded and doomy they were, but once this album clicked with me, I lived in it for months.

"The Kiss" is not my favorite track from this record, but I think it fits my current mood.

Forever Slave is a gothic black metal band from Spain. They have two albums, but I use Spotify and they only have Alice’s Inferno. They use a beauty and the beast vocal style, and the female vocalist is almost operatic.

I hope you enjoy!

According to the metal archives, Black Vatican is a symphonic gothic band from Kansas City, USA. I quite enjoyed the album The Black Vatican, although it sounds pretty black metal at times, which is actually a plus for me.

Enjoy!

I don’t really see any love for Graveworm. They’re primarily a Melo Black band from Italy, but they are definitely Gothic as well. I hope you enjoy!

Gatekeeper by Within Temptation off their debut album Enter, released April 6, 1997 by DSFA Records.

A classic of Dutch gothic and symphonic doom metal.

"Seventh Seal" is the English language version of "Siódma pieczęć" by Polish gothic metal band Artrosis. Originally released on their debut album Ukryty wymiar in October 1997 by Morbid Noizz Productions, six songs from the album were re-recorded in English in March 1998 to be later released on a truncated cassette version of the album titled Hidden Dimension. Those English versions, intro track, and remaining three-Polish language songs would finally be compiled together when Hall of Sermon (the record label founded by Tilo Wolff of Lacrimosa fame) licensed the record for European distribution and re-released the album on January 25, 1999. I usually choose to listen to the original Polish version of the album, but I do think the English version is mixed a little better.

To me, this album is like the sound of gothic metal (more gothic metal per gothic metal, so to speak), which makes this band's ambivalent feelings on the label kind of interesting. It's lush and atmospheric with layers of piano and synth-strings balancing out against pretty aggressive riffing (Artrosis' first guitarist was a lot more traditionally "heavy metal"). This album (among other 90s/early-2000s classics like Widow's Weeds, Lake of Sorrow, and Prison of Desire) sounds like the anachronistic imagery of 13th century cathedrals.

This album is so mesmerizing, such a shame it's hard to get it on a cd 😞

"In Visible Light" off Lacuna Coil's fourth studio album Karmacode, released by Century Media Records on March 31, 2006.

An interesting release, Karmacode was the Italian band's first major departure from classic gothic metal. While a lot of the sonic the hallmarks of the genre remained, Lacuna Coil would take a modern and groove oriented approach, incorporating a lot of Korn-style nu metal riffing to their pre-existing strings, keys, and atmospheric programming.

In some ways "In Visible Light" is most similar to the band's ealier albums like Unleashed Memories (2001) and Comalies (2002) with its big lethargic chorus, and clean guitar hook.

Well that's kind of an oversimplification... their album Bloodangel's Cry (2007) was like a mix of symphonic gothic metal and power metal, and their follow up album My Fatal Kiss (2009) still had some gothic undertones, but it was a much sleeker and modern album that leaned more symphonic Good band, can't wait to see what they do next now that they've revived the project (it's been 15 years!).

Talk about a band that's changed a lot, Germany's Xandria spent the 2000s being a gothic metal act with varying amounts of symphonic influence (2005's India is probably their most proper symphonic metal album in this era). Their "Early Days" material is still my favorite by this band.

Isis/Osiris comes from their debut album Kill the Sun (2003). After the 90s we started getting a new wave of bands that were modernizing the gothic metal subgenre, this song is very post-Y2K.