MY DYING BRIDE Guitarist Talks About Upcoming Album

Metal Monk UK recently conducted an interview with MY DYING BRIDE guitarist Hamish Glencross. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Monk UK: Your website says you are already writing new material — how is this shaping up? Are you just playing around with ideas at the moment or are any songs taking shape? Can we expect any sort of radical departure from "Songs of Darkness, Words of Light"?

Hamish Glencross: "Andy [Craighan, guitar] and myself have a lot of guitar riffs and musical ideas that we have been playing around with — a lot of which have quickly formed into near complete song structures, and are waiting for lyrics that could influence their development further. Aaron [Stainthorpe, vocals] has started writing lyrics and I look forward to seeing what develops next. It is too early to say what direction the album will take, as that is determined by the songs constituting it — but the music so far is deeply sorrowful with a very strong melodic sense tinged with sadness."

Metal Monk UK: How do you go about writing new material? Does the band get together and share ideas in a democratic fashion, or are there any particularly strong song writing forces in the band?

Hamish Glencross: "Everyone can bring in ideas when we are writing new material, but most frequently the songs begin with the guitar lines written by me and Andy. There have been a couple of times when a song has begun with lyrics written Aaron and he has an idea of what he imagines the song to sound like, or either Andy or myself have written guitar lines directly influenced by some text Aaron has written.

Metal Monk UK: Would you ever consider creating another experimental record, in vein of "34.788% Complete"?

Hamish Glencross: "If it was the natural direction our writing was going at the time. We would never sit down and say to ourselves we are going to write an album that will sound like something else — the songs develop in their own fashion, but we are certainly not afraid of experimentation!"

Metal Monk UK: Metal fans can be pretty elitist when they want to be. Does it annoy you at all if people bang on about new stuff "never being on par" with older material? Especially when you yourself joined the band at a later time?

Hamish Glencross: "Not at all — everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I know that listening to old albums brings back old memories as well, which influences how you view an album. We constantly get people telling us how much they love 'The Dreadful Hours' album, 'Songs of Darkness' featured in critics and fans' best albums of the year lists, and 'She Is The Dark' is a staple of our live set because it is regarded by many as a classic. We love and respect our past and present, and look forward to the future."

Read Hamish Glencross's entire interview with Metal Monk UK at this location.