| The Ghost of Orion | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 6 March 2020 | |||
| Recorded | 2018–2019 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 56:06 | |||
| Label | Nuclear Blast | |||
| Producer | Mark Mynett | |||
| My Dying Bride chronology | ||||
| ||||
The Ghost of Orion is the thirteenth [lower-alpha 1] studio album by British heavy metal band My Dying Bride. It was released on 6 March 2020 through Nuclear Blast. [3]
The album is the band's first with new member Jeff Singer, replacing Shaun Taylor-Steels who departed due to "unresolvable drumming issues". [4] Aaron Stainthorpe's five-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer a couple years after the release of the band's previous album Feel the Misery , from which she was later declared in remission. [5]
Mark Mynett is the producer and studio engineer for the album and Jo Quail performs cello on some songs. [6]
The album's first single, "Your Broken Shore", was released on 20 January, [7] followed by a second single, "Tired of Tears", on 7 February. [8]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 81/100 [9] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [10] |
| Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles |   [2] |
| Kerrang! | [11] |
| Metal Storm | (6.0/10) [12] |
The Ghost of Orion received generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 81, based on four reviews. [9]
Thom Jurek of AllMusic wrote a positive review, remarking that "The Ghost of Orion was born in the aftermath of strife, strain, and fear; but these are balanced by gratitude, endurance, and even benevolence; the conflicting tensions exist with no attempt to alleviate them, and all of these qualities are among the many reasons My Dying Bride has, for more than three decades, reigned at the pinnacle of doom metal." [10]
New Noise Magazine, in an article detailing an interview with Stainthorpe, described him as having "one of his most impressive vocal performances to date". [13]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Your Broken Shore" | 7:40 |
| 2. | "To Outlive the Gods" | 7:55 |
| 3. | "Tired of Tears" | 8:35 |
| 4. | "The Solace" | 5:50 |
| 5. | "The Long Black Land" | 9:59 |
| 6. | "The Ghost of Orion" | 3:29 |
| 7. | "The Old Earth" | 10:30 |
| 8. | "Your Woven Shore" | 2:08 |
| Total length: | 56:06 [10] | |
| Chart (2020) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [14] | 22 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [15] | 107 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [16] | 160 |
| Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) [17] | 34 |
| French Albums (SNEP) [18] | 172 |
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [19] | 12 |
| Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ) [20] | 27 |
| Polish Albums (ZPAV) [21] | 34 |
| Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE) [22] | 35 |
| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [23] | 19 |
My Dying Bride are an English doom metal band formed in Bradford. Since their inception in 1990, they have released 13 studio albums, three EPs, one demo, one box set, four compilation albums, one live album, and one live CD/DVD release.
Songs of Darkness, Words of Light is the eighth album from 2004 by the British heavy metal band My Dying Bride. This album marks the debut of keyboardist Sarah Stanton. Initial copies of the album came in a hard clamshell case and featured a double sided poster and a fridge magnet as extras. This tradition was continued for the next album, A Line of Deathless Kings.
The Dreadful Hours is the seventh album by My Dying Bride, released on 13 November 2001. It contains a remake of "The Return of the Beautiful" from the band's debut album, As the Flower Withers. The Dreadful Hours was issued in a digipak with a full colour booklet.
The Light at the End of the World is the sixth album by My Dying Bride, released in 1999. After the more experimental 34.788%...Complete, this album marks a return to the more traditional My Dying Bride doom sound and style of lyrics. It was also the first My Dying Bride release since 1994's The Sexuality of Bereavement to feature growling vocals, although Aaron Stainthorpe has noticeably changed his style and broadened his range. All guitar parts on the album were recorded by Andrew Craighan, following the earlier departure of Calvin Robertshaw. Following Robertshaw's departure, only Craighan and Stainthorpe remained as founding members of the band. Hamish Glencross was soon after recruited as permanent guitarist. The keyboard parts were played by Jonny Maudling of Bal-Sagoth. It is also the first MDB album to feature the drumming of Shaun Steels, who would remain with the band until 2006.
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The Angel and the Dark River is the third album by the British heavy metal band My Dying Bride. The 1996 re-release contains one bonus track "The Sexuality of Bereavement" and a bonus CD titled Live at the Dynamo. The Live CD was recorded during their appearance at the Dynamo Festival in 1995.
A Line of Deathless Kings is the ninth studio album by My Dying Bride. It was released on 9 October 2006.
"Deeper Down" is a song by British doom metal band My Dying Bride, released on 18 September 2006. It is an edited version of the song which appears on the album A Line of Deathless Kings.
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The Barghest O' Whitby is an EP by My Dying Bride, released on 7 November 2011. It consists of a single, 27-minute track.
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The Manuscript is a My Dying Bride EP released on 13 May 2013 on CD and vinyl. It contains four tracks, three of which were recorded at the same time as the band's previous album, A Map of All Our Failures.
Pale Communion is the eleventh studio album by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth. The album was released on 26 August 2014 through Roadrunner Records. The album was produced by Mikael Åkerfeldt and mixed by Steven Wilson. Pale Communion is the first album with keyboardist Joakim Svalberg after the departure of Per Wiberg in 2011. The album sold 19,090 copies in its first week of release in the United States, debuting at number 19 on the Billboard 200.
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Macabre Caberet is an EP by My Dying Bride, released in CD and vinyl formats via Nuclear Blast on 20 November 2020.
The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! is the sixteenth studio album by American thrash metal band Megadeth, released on September 2, 2022, on frontman Dave Mustaine's Tradecraft label via Universal. It is the first Megadeth album to feature drummer Dirk Verbeuren and their first studio album in six years since Dystopia (2016), marking the longest gap between two studio albums in the band's career. The album was produced by Mustaine and Chris Rakestraw.
Hushed and Grim is the eighth studio album by American heavy metal band Mastodon. It was released as a double album on October 29, 2021, through Reprise Records. The album is the band's longest to date, their first double album. Guest appearances include Soundgarden's Kim Thayil on "Had It All" and Troy Sanders' mother Jody Sanders on French horn but no guest vocal appearance by Scott Kelly from Neurosis for the first time since their 2002 debut Remission, due to Kelly's withdrawal from the public eye that was not announced until August 2022. The album also serves as a tribute to Mastodon's former manager Nick John, after his death from cancer in 2018.
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