My Silent Wake – The Anatomy of Melancholy (Remastered) (2012)

Being huge fans of Death/Doom Metal, we are pleased to be reviewing My Silent Wake and their 2012 remastered release titled “The Anatomy of Melancholy”. In this double release, the band delivers 90 minutes of soul crushing Death/Doom Metal with some Gothic influences very similar to My Dying Bride and related bands. Since the original recording is from 2007, we can clearly hear the time-stamp on their musical style and won’t be criticizing them from the ‘retro’ sound.

The band opens the first CD with the typical keyboard intro only to fully explode into Doom brilliance with the opening riffs of “Dying Things We’re Living For”. The band’s similarities to My Dying Bride are undeniable with the excellent “Heretic”. The clean vocals and riffs are superb and really nail the atmosphere created by Death/Doom releases from back in the day. Not everything is all mellow and just slow and painful, the band does a great job in also having harsh elements in their music and whipping out some very aggressive sections like on “Into Silence”.

The band keeps it interesting with tracks like “Sullen Earth” that greatly diverge from the traditional Death/Doom sound and give the first CD quite an enjoyable set of diverse songs. Doing a 180 degree genre flip, the second CD features Neo-Folk tracks that remind us of Empyrirum. In this CD the band really showcases their depth and will surely astonish you with the drastic change in styles, but their music is still as good as on the first CD.

Setting a very martial mood with “Anatomy of Melancholy”, the band goes full neo-folk with excellent tracks like “Revolution”, “In The Glow Of The Autumn Sun” and “Look Beyond The Flesh, Look Beyond The Mind”. The band nicely uses lush acoustic guitars with dreamy clean vocals and creates a very organic dark atmosphere that bands like Neun Welten, Empyrium, Tenhi and similar acts have perfected over the years.

Our favorite track in the second CD is the ethereal “Photograph”, a very emotive song that has a very post-rock-ish vibe. Being a remastered version of the 2007 release, we can’t really tell what has changed, but we can say that the band has immense musical talent behind them and they deliver two very different but equally exciting releases. While the band’s sound has progressed over the years, their early material is quite worth your time if you like bands like My Dying Bride and Empyrium.

Label: Bombworks Records

Release: 2012

Genre: Gothic Death/Doom Metal/Neo-Folk

Country: UK