MY DYING BRIDE — As the Flower Withers (review)

MY DYING BRIDE — As the Flower Withers album cover

Album · 1992 · Death-Doom Metal

3.5/5 · 2017-10-13
UMUR

"As the Flower Withers" is the debut full-length studio album by UK doom/death metal act My Dying Bride. The album was released through Peaceville Records in May 1992. Peaceville Records signed the band after listening to the 1991 "God Is Alone" EP. My Dying Bride´s first release on Peaceville Records was the "Symphonaire Infernus et Spera Empyrium" EP from 1991, which with its accompanying promotional video airing on MTVs Headbangers Ball, put My Dying Bride firmly on the doom/death metal map. Following up on a success (underground or not) is always a daunting task, but "As the Flower Withers" proved to be an even greater success for the band, and put them in the forefront of the UK doom/death metal scene along with artists like Paradise Lost and Anathema (who at this point through hadn´t released their debut yet).

The music on the album is a combination of crushingly heavy and slow doom/death metal and mid-paced and occasionally faster paced old school death metal. On this album lead vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe only uses his growling vocal style. Although the tracks feature elements and sections with both of the above mentioned musical styles, the album´s tracks can roughly be divided into two main styles. "Silent Dance" is a short classical intro, so I´ll only mention it briefly as a great atmospheric opening to the album. "Sear Me", "The Bitterness and the Bereavement", and "The Return of the Beautiful" are all fairly long, slow, and heavy doom/death metal tracks, featuring majestic melancholic atmospheres, classical contrapoint melodies between guitars and violin, and poetic lyrics, while "The Forever People", "Vast Choirs", and "Erotic Literature" are mainly old school death metal tracks with the occassional more doomy touch.

The musicianship is strong on all posts, but I´ll give a special mention to drummer Rick Miah for his creative approach to doom metal drumming. It´s not always easy for a drummer to make that part of a doom metal album interesting, but Miah understands the importance of variation, and to play some catchy and memorable rhythm patterns. Take for example the opening drum pattern to "Sear Me". Now that´s one hell of a catchy rhythm pattern that´ll stick in your head forever.

"As the Flower Withers" features a powerful, raw, and detailed sound production, which suits the material well. The guitar tone could maybe have been a bit more defined, but it´s a minor detail, and overall the album is well sounding. So upon conclusion it´s a quality album and a seminal doom/death metal release from the early 90s. To my ears it´s not a perfect release though, and it´s mostly a result of the uneven songwriting and stylistic inconsistency. My Dying Bride shine when they play slow doom/death metal, but when they play more "straight" old school death metal they are pretty unremarkable (or at least nothing out of the ordinary), and as half of the tracks on the album are in that style, I´d say a 3.5 star (70%) rating is fair.

more than 2 years ago
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voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I’m in perhaps an unfortunate position in that I’m just hearing these late 80’s / early 90’s albums for the first time. I’m still piecing together how they fit in with the development of heavy metal at the time, so I don’t have the same appreciation for how groundbreaking certain albums were. I’m learning, but there are many gaps in my knowledge and understanding.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

When this one came out it was nothing short of a revelation, but it´s now my second time reviewing the album in retrospect, and I´m just not as overwhelmed today as I was back when it was released. I was interested to see if my opinion had changed from the review I wrote about 10 years ago, but my new review read almost exactly like the one I wrote 10 years ago.

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I had intended to review this myself last night but I was so sleepy that I could barely finish my Obituary review. This is an album that becomes more interesting with more attention. I find the production doesn’t let the music shine as much as it should.