TURN LOOSE THE SWANS

"Turn Loose the Swans" is the 2nd full-length studio album by UK doom/death metal act My Dying Bride. The album was released through Peaceville Records in October 1993. It´s the successor to "As the Flower Withers" from May 1992, although the two full-length albums are bridged by "The Thrash of Naked Limbs (1993)" EP from February 1993. There´s been one lineup change since the debut album as violinist/keyboard player Martin Powell joined My Dying Bride on a permanent basis before the recording sessions for "The Thrash of Naked Limbs (1993)". He did session work on the debut album, but as the band wanted to explore new ground and increase the dynamics of their music, it was decided that Powell should become a fulltime member of the band.

My Dying Bride had already this early on in their career established themselves as one of the leading doom/death metal artists on the early 90s scene with their slow, doomy, and über melancholic debut album and the two EPs bookending said album. "Turn Loose the Swans" is stylistically quite different from the previous releases by the band. Powell´s piano/keyboards and violin are given a lot of space and time on the tracks, and lead vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe now also sings clean vocal and performs spoken sections, in addition to his growling vocal parts, which make the vocal part of the music a much more varied listen than anything the band had released before. His poetic lyrics are slightly less cryptic than the case was on the debut album, but still require something from the listener.

"Turn Loose the Swans" is bookended by two piano and speaking/singing driven tracks in "Sear Me MCMXCIII" and "Black God" (the latter featuring additional female vocals by Zena Choi). The tracks also feature keyboards and violin, but they don´t feauture bass, guitars, or drums and as a consequence aren´t really metal oriented tracks, but rather a dark, gothic tinged type of music. The former is a variation on the themes from the "Sear Me" track from the debut album, and it´s a great atmospheric and melancholic opening to the album. The following track "Your River" also opens with a simple repeated melancholic clean guitar theme, but soon explodes in several more brutal doom/death oriented sections of riffs (an almost progressive structured opening to the track), before settling on an atmospheric clean vocal section. It´s quite the adventurous track though, and develops a lot through its 9:24 minutes long playing time, and also features heavier death growling sections.

Both "The Songless Bird" and "The Snow in My Hand" are great varied tracks too with especially Powell shining with some soaring melancholic violin themes, but the 12:15 minutes long "The Crown of Sympathy" is to my ears the highlight of the album. It´s a varied track featuring one of the most recognisable main riffs in the band´s discography and one of Stainthorpe´s strongest vocal performances yet. The atmospheric middle section may be slightly too long to some ears, but the slow building keyboard driven section does have a climatic effect when the full band orchestration kicks in. The title track which follows is probably the most doom/death metal oriented track on the album, as a consequence of Stainthorpe predominantly performing growling vocals on the track.

"Turn Loose the Swans" features a detailed and well sounding production. It´s not quite as heavy nor as brutal as the sound productions on the early releases by the band, but it´s a sound suiting the material perfectly. While "Turn Loose the Swans" is in many ways a transition album from the early doom/death releases to the gothic tinged doom metal of the next couple of albums, it´s in that space between I think My Dying Bride hit their most interesting combination of stylistic elements and to my ears it´s one of their most accomplished and memorable releases. Add to that the fact that it was a groundbreaking doom/death metal album upon release (nothing sounded like this in 1993), and a 5 star (100%) rating is fully deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)