Mourning Beloveth began in winter 1992 but it wasn’t until 1996 that we recorded our first, untitled, demo with Darren (vocals), Frank (guitar), Brian (bass), Tim (drums). Recorded in eight hours with Adrian Butler at the desk this demo contains two songs and is a raw indication of where Mourning Beloveth stands in the doom death scene today. Adrian joined on bass soon after and Brian switched to guitar. This was the line-up that recorded the highly acclaimed Autumnal Fires demo in 1998 (receiving “Demo of the issue” in Moondance magazine).
Autumnal Fires is a 40-minute piece of music as the songs were intertwined with classical piano and it showed a huge progression in the writing and recording stakes. Mainly classed as Doom/Death this was the first step into achieving a sound of our own and it saw the integration of clean vocals. An extensive tour of Ireland followed culminating in a support slot to none other than Cathedral in May 1999. Over 1200 copies of Autumnal Fires ware sold throughout the underground and the MB name spread.
We decided to take a bold step, like so many of their contemporaries, and record in the famous Academy studios with Magz at the helm. What was produced after seven intense days of recording was “Dust”, a sixty-six minute Doom masterpiece harking back to the days of the early Doom/Death scene. Dust is a mixture of old and new songs and this creates some of the heaviest and most melancholic music ever. The atmosphere and originality is helped by the greater usage of clean and growling vocals and the amazing production courtesy of Mags.The strength of the material is helped in no small way by the fact that the same line-up had been together for 5 years at the time of recording Dust.
Following the release of Dust, in March 2001, we received rave reviews in many established magazines including Terrorizer, Metal Hammer (Greece), Heavy Oder,Was, Metal Ireland, Doom-metal.com, Aardshock along with many others, mostly seeing the band as the saviours of the Doom/Death style. On the strength of this we played some high profile dates with none other Cradle of Filth that was huge exposure for us; we even managed to play our first gig in the UK, in Bradford.
