Turn Loose the Swans

About Turn Loose the Swans

Turn Loose the Swans is the second album by the British doom metal band My Dying Bride, released in 1993 and remastered in 2013. It marked a radical departure from the band's first full-length, As the Flower Withers. Martin Powell's violin playing had become fully integrated into the band's sound, whilst vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe mixed death metal growls and grunts with the spoken word and an often plaintive singing voice. The first ("Sear Me MCMXCIII") and final ("Black God") tracks dispensed with guitars, bass and drums altogether, while the album was also far slower and longer than its predecessor. For these reasons, Turn Loose the Swans is often considered to be important in the development of the death-doom and gothic metal hybrid pioneered by My Dying Bride. Though far from straightforward, Aaron Stainthorpe's lyrics were much less complex than those employed on As the Flower Withers. He abstained from the use of non-English phrases, and explicitly addressed themes such as anti-Christianity and lovelorn longing. "Black God" took its lyrics from the last eight lines of a poem called "Ah! The Shepherd's Mournful Fate" by the 18th-century Scottish poet William Hamilton. more »