Turn Loose the Swans

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Turn Loose the Swans

Studio album by My Dying Bride
Released	1993
Recorded	1993
Genre	Doom metal
Length	58:15
Label	Peaceville Records
Producer(s)	Robert 'Mags' Magoolagan, My Dying Bride
All Music Guide link
My Dying Bride chronology
Unreleased Bitterness (1993)	Turn Loose the Swans (1993)	I Am the Bloody Earth (1994)

Turn Loose the Swans was the second album by the British doom metal band My Dying Bride.

It marked a radical departure from the band's first full length, As the Flower Withers. Martin Powell's violin playing had become fully integrated into the band's sound, whilst vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe mixed death metal growls and grunts with the spoken word and an often plaintive singing voice. The first ("Sear Me MCMXCIII") and final ("Black God") tracks dispensed with electric guitar altogether, while the album was also far slower and longer than its predecessor. For these reasons, Turn Loose the Swans is often considered to be important in the development of the doom metal/death metal hybrid pioneered by My Dying Bride and fellow Peaceville bands Anathema and Paradise Lost.

Though far from straightforward, Aaron Stainthorpe's lyrics were much less complex than those employed on As the Flower Withers. He abstained from the use of non-English phrases, and explicitly addressed themes such as Christianity and lovelorn longing. "Black God" took its lyrics from the last eight lines of a poem called "Ah! The Shepherd's Mournful Fate" by the 18th century Scottish poet William Hamilton.