Artist: MY DYING BRIDE
Album: AS THE FLOWER WITHERS (DIGI)

Year: 1992/ 2004
Media type: CD

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.

TRACKLIST:

"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

2004 Reissue Bonus Track
"Unreleased Bitterness" - 7:49

LINE-UP:

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