As the Flower Withers
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| As the Flower Withers | |||||
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| Studio album by My Dying Bride | |||||
| Released | May 22, 1992 | ||||
| Recorded | December 1991 - January 1992 | ||||
| Genre | Doom metal Death metal |
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| Length | 49:26 | ||||
| Label | Peaceville Records | ||||
| Producer | Hammy, My Dying Bride | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
| My Dying Bride chronology | |||||
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As the Flower Withers was the first album by Yorkshire-based doom metal band My Dying Bride.
Lyrically, Aaron Stainthorpe was at his most uncompromisingly elaborate. When he was not invoking Latin in asking his audiences to incinerate an unnamed ‘her’ (‘Sear Me’), he was staging an epic battle between God and nature (‘The Return Of The Beautiful’). Lines such as "Stricken I’d raise my dripping limbs" and "Bare witness to this orgy of glory" are typical of the poetic extravagances that Stainthorpe employed on this debut full-length.
As far as it is possible to generalise, most of the music on As the Flower Withers stretched traditional death metal almost to its limits. There are long, drawn-out passages, and these provided a counterpoint to the time-honoured galloping detuned guitar that followed. Stainthorpe's vocals are all growls and grunts, but they are occasionally underscored by violin and keyboard sections – as in "The Bitterness and the Bereavement" and "The Return of the Beautiful".
As the Flower Withers was one of the albums that launched the doom death metal hybrid in the underground metal scene, and gave a taste of the gloomy depths that would be plumbed on albums such as 1995's The Angel and the Dark River. Contemporaries such as Paradise Lost and Anathema would also contribute to the rise of the doom death metal genre.
The artwork was designed by Dave McKean.
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[edit] Song Information
Many of the tracks on this album have appeared in a different form on other MDB releases. "Sear Me" was the first in a trilogy of songs to bear the title, followed by the keyboard and violin-only "Sear Me MCMXCIII" in 1993 and "Sear Me III" in 1999, which is more similar in style to the original, being a full band composition. "The Bitterness And The Bereavement" evolved from an earlier demo, which was released independently as "Unreleased Bitterness" in 1993. This version of the song also appears on the digipak re-release of "As The Flower Withers", and on the rarities/best-of compilation "Meisterwerk 1". "Vast Choirs" is a reworked version of the version that appears on the band's first recording, "Towards the Sinister". This version is widely available on both "Meisterwerk 2" and the 2004 reissue of "Trinity". "The Return Of The Beautiful" was re-recorded for 2001's "The Dreadful Hours". Live versions of "The Forever People" can be found on the limited edition versions of "The Angel and the Dark River" and "For Darkest Eyes". This song is often played as the last song of the set in many of the band's live shows.
[edit] Track listing
- "Silent Dance" – 2:00
- "Sear Me" – 9:00
- "The Forever People" – 4:03
- "The Bitterness and the Bereavement" – 7:28
- "Vast Choirs" – 8:09
- "The Return of the Beautiful" – 12:45
- "Erotic Literature" – 5:05
[edit] Japanese Bonus Track
- "The Forever People"-live at the Dynamo Festival, 1995 - 4:56
[edit] 2003 Reissue Bonus Track
- "Unreleased Bitterness" - 7:49
[edit] Credits
- Aaron Stainthorpe - vocals
- Andrew Craighan - guitar
- Calvin Robertshaw - guitar
- Adrian Jackson - bass
- Rick Miah - drums
- Martin Powell - violin
- Wolfgang Bremmer - horns
- Dave McKean - album artwork
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