Many Suffer, Featuring ex-My Dying Bride Guitarist Calvin Robertshaw, Unveil New Blacked Doom Track

Calvin Robertshaw’s death/doom résumé is unfuckwithable. The former My Dying Bride guitarist laid down mournful riffs on a trio of classic LPs — As the Flower Withers, Turn Loose the Swans and The Angel and the Dark River — in the early-to-mid-’90s before stepping away from the band for nearly 15 years (he rejoined in 2014 before exiting again just a few years later). That material left its mark on a global scene that still thrives to this day.

What most doom hounds don’t know, however, is that Robertshaw has been quietly and meticulously working on his own project for over a decade. Today we can finally reveal Many Suffer. Old-school MBD fans will recognize the somber guitar melodies that help shaped Robertshaw’s former band, but also a much more aggressive, black metal-influenced approach on the songs that make up the six-track debut, The Strangest of Beasts. Written and performed entirely by the guitarist (save a couple of guest vocal performances from Malakhim’s E and Wallfahrer’s eponymous frontman), the long-simmering album will finally arrive December 11.

“It feels like a lifetime ago since the inception of the Many Suffer project,” Robertshaw tells Decibel. “What can I say? Sometimes life gets in the way. Opportunities came and went, but in the back of my mind the seeds had been sown. And so I find myself on the cusp of my first release, The Strangest of Beasts. Mindful of comparisons to previous work, but elated at the prospect of unleashing the most satisfying recording I’ve ever made. This truly encompasses all I love about the broad metal spectrum. This is what I’ve always wanted to portray through my music: Doom with a heart of black.”

You can hear for yourself via the lyric video for “The Trees Die Standing” below. Then you’ll want to pre-order The Strangest of Beasts (limited to 500 CD and 100 cassettes) through Many Suffer’s official Bandcamp profile.

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