Metal Storm logo
My Dying Bride - As The Flower Withers review



Reviewer:
8.5

332 users:
7.94
Band: My Dying Bride
Album: As The Flower Withers
Release date: May 1992


01. Silent Dance
02. Sear Me
03. The Forever People
04. The Bitterness And The Bereavement
05. Vast Choirs
06. The Return Of The Beautiful
07. Erotic Literature [1992 CD and cassette bonus]
08. The Forever People [live] [1996 Japanese bonus]
09. Unreleased Bitterness [2004 digipack bonus]

My Dying Bride is one of the most influential bands in the doom/death metal scene (and not only); may I say doom/death itself? Formed back in 1990 by Calvin, Aaron, Andy and Rick and having already released two demos ("Towards the sinister" and "God is alone") and an interesting EP ("Symphonaire Infernus et Spera Empyrium") they release during 1992 their long-awaited debut album "As the flower withers". Pure doom/death metal with death metal outbursts and Aaron being an utterly descriptive interpreter, inspiration, intense poetic lyrics with a sense of mourning romanticism and a dark wailing atmosphere consist of this wonderful debut album leaving behind a bitter taste of a dying bride, My Dying Bride?

The flower starts to wither with the mourning atmosphere of "Silent dance", dancing with inner intense emotions to reach "Sear me", a renowned My Dying Bride composition. If this isn't a mourning song then there will never exist one. The grandeur of melancholy, the sense of loss, the inner withering flower, all of them being expressed through the painful melodies of this composition. The bleeding guitar riffing turning slowly to angry desperate riffing and Aaron, a charismatic singer whose interpretation makes the whole atmosphere more intense, more descriptive by adding a sense of drama evoking dark romantic visions in the air, make "Sear me" a great composition.

"This is your last chance to get fucking moving" mentioned Aaron to the audience of the Dynamo 95' festival preparing them for a death metal dynamite, "The forever people", and he is totally right. The whole song is a death metal outburst itself filled with wonderful riffing and Aaron's ecstatic grunts. "The bitterness and the bereavement", which follows, opens with slow mourning guitar riffing, wailing violin melodies that tear apart all hope and Aaron screaming from the core of his soul and so the whole song continues in a mourning way with small outbursts with Aaron interpreting in dramatic ecstasy. The album continues in up-tempo rhythm and Aaron's sardonic laugh with "Vast Choirs" to slowly turn into another low-tempo doomy nightmare with faster moments of hate and Aaron expressing in emotional manner his poetically written mournful lyrics.

"The return of the beautiful" follows, a composition that has left me speechless. I cannot utter a word for such a wonderful piece of Art. A doom/death metal masterpiece with the mourning poetic lyrics harmonizing beautifully with the bleak soundscape filled with bleeding violin melodies, slow mourning guitars and death metal outbursts escalating in an intense way the song with Aaron either grunting or even screaming in emotional ecstasy and a rhythm section that creates walls of sound. The flower withers and lies dead on the bleeding earth with "Erotic Literature", the ending theme of this awesome debut album, an emotionally and musically intense, yet slowing down at times, composition with wonderful guitar work, atmosphere-evoking dark keyboard melodies and Aaron interpreting in an unequalled way the fabulous poetic lyrics.

"As the flower withers" is a must for all the doom/death metal and My Dying Bride adorers being a wonderful debut album of a wonderful band; the only "problem" of this album is its production which could have been better, yet the way it is done still adds another dark sense to the whole atmosphere of the album.





Written on 17.10.2004 by "It is myself I have never met, whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind."


Comments

Comments: 8   Visited by: 103 users
20.06.2007 - 15:45
Rating: 6
Warman
Erotic Stains
Great album and may I say an awesome review!
----
Loading...
02.03.2011 - 07:23
Bathoria

I love MDB!!!
Loading...
01.10.2011 - 17:12
BeastOfMetal456
Account deleted
Great review for a beast of an album.
Loading...
01.05.2012 - 00:53
@gent_-_orange

My favourite MDB album, Its the same case as Paradise Lost's debut, Both seem to get so little attention compared to the later albums.
Loading...
01.05.2012 - 01:08
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by @gent_-_orange on 01.05.2012 at 00:53

My favourite MDB album, Its the same case as Paradise Lost's debut, Both seem to get so little attention compared to the later albums.


when both are in fact their best, same for Anathema for me.
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

Loading...
01.05.2012 - 01:10
Rating: 8
X-Ray Rod
Skandino
Written by @gent_-_orange on 01.05.2012 at 00:53

My favourite MDB album, Its the same case as Paradise Lost's debut, Both seem to get so little attention compared to the later albums.


Same here. This is my favorite MDB (I actually enjoy almost all their stuff, they just went downhill with A Line Of Deathless Kings)... But this one still owns them all with only the EP Symphonaire Infernus et Spera Empyrium being as good. The production here is perfect for the music. It gives such a... macabre vibe, it's morbid beauty.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 01.05.2012 at 01:08
same for Anathema for me.

Their debut is meh, specially compared to The Silent Enigma if you ask me
----
Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29
Like you could kiss my ass
Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
Rod, let me love you.
Loading...
01.05.2012 - 01:29
@gent_-_orange

Exactly, Later MDB albums sounded more melancholic and sad but here the music sounds very dark and oppressive. This is where the Death side of MDB's Doom/Death sound was at its strongest.

All the Peaceville trilogy debut albums are underrated in my eyes.
Loading...
27.04.2016 - 18:35
Rating: 8
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Written by @gent_-_orange on 01.05.2012 at 01:29

Exactly, Later MDB albums sounded more melancholic and sad but here the music sounds very dark and oppressive. This is where the Death side of MDB's Doom/Death sound was at its strongest.

All the Peaceville trilogy debut albums are underrated in my eyes.


indeed, only think what is missing here to be super perfect is melancholy
----
Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Loading...

Hits total: 8319 | This month: 10