Turn Loose the Swans

Turn Loose the Swans is the second studio album by English doom metal band My Dying Bride, released on 11 October 1993 through Peaceville. It followed their debut, As the Flower Withers, but sounds like a sharp turn away from it: slower, longer and far more adventurous. Martin Powell's violin is now woven into the band's sound, and Aaron Stainthorpe moves between death metal growls, spoken passages and a plaintive singing voice.

The opening track, "Sear Me MCMXCIII", and the closer, "Black God", drop guitars, bass and drums altogether. The closer borrows its words from the last eight lines of an 18th-century poem by William Hamilton. Stainthorpe's lyrics are simpler than before, tackling anti-Christian themes and lovelorn longing. He and Andrew Craighan also made the artwork. The record is often seen as a key step in death-doom, a style the band helped pioneer, and it points towards the gothic metal leanings of their later albums.