Warthur After Martin Powell had served as session violinist on My Dying Bride's debut album and the preceding EP, The Thrash of Naked Limbs marked his entry as a full member of the lineup, with his violin contributions adding a distinctive touch to the material here which helps My Dying Bride stand apart from labelmates Paradise Lost and other explorers of the death-doom subgenre.

Between this and the odd keyboard contribution, things seem to be drifting somewhat in the sort of gothic metal direction which Paradise Lost had at this point gone a little further in exploring, but by and large the centre of gravity is still within the realms already explored on As the Flower Withers. If you dig the sound of early My Dying Bride, this will make the EP (or its compilation appearance on Trilogy) a tempting proposition, offering 18 minutes of beautifully grim mope-metal.

siLLy puPPy MY DYING BRIDE had such positive reaction to their innovative use of symphonic embellishments and violin in their unique signature sound that by the time they got to their 2nd EP they made violinist a full-fledge member of the band and steered their sound incrementally away from the aggressive death metal world more into atmospheric doom metal arenas. THE THRASH OF NAKED LIMBS followed the debut full-length “As The Flower Withers” and was the turning point where heavy guitar assaults were deemphasized and the dread inducing atmospheres accompanied by poetic visions of woe became the dominant force. While Aaron Stainthorpe utilized his death growls exclusively on the title track, for the first time he introduced his clean Gothic styled vocals which offered a new mood setting feel to their music.

While the title track is an expected death-doom track with heavy Sabbath inspired guitar in slowed down splendor, “Le Cerf Malade (The Sick Stag)” introduces a new aspect of the band, namely a propensity for thick brooding dark ambient passages. This track is exclusively instrumental with no metal to be found and has brief lyrics in French that are a fragment from a poem of the same name from the 17th century Frnech poet Jean de la Fontaine. “Gather Me Up Forever” proves they indeed a metal band and jumps back into the death-doom metal pattern that the title track dished out only some harder driving uptempo passages. This track is quite successful at showing how MY DYING BRIDE was masterfully composing doom metal with ambience and progressive touches and lots of attention paid to the most minute sound dynamics.

As heard on THE THRASH OF NAKED LIMBS, the transition was near complete but remnants of the early death metal stage of the band was still a significant part of the band’s sound although less emphasized than on the previous releases. MY DYING BRIDE was cautious about morphing too quickly from one world to the next and only proceeded as it made sure that nothing sounded stilted or done so without a satisfying unification of the styles at hand. Personally i find THE THRASH OF NAKED LIMBS to be yet another exemplary and satisfying listen with three tracks equally interesting as they place emphasis on different aspects of the band’s different strengths. As with the “Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium” EP, this one can be found on the box set “The Stories” or the much easier found “Trinity” compilations.

UMUR "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" is an EP release by UK doom/death metal act My Dying Bride. The EP was released through Peaceville Records in February 1993 and bridges the gap between the band´s debut and second full-length studio albums "As The Flower Withers (1992)" and "Turn Loose the Swans (1993)". A shortened version of the title track was used for a promotional video which received some rotation on the prolific MTV Headbanger´s Ball show in 1993, which further helped to enhance My Dying Bride´s profile on this early stage of their career. The material from the EP has since become available on various compilations.

"The Thrash of Naked Limbs" features 3 tracks and a full playing time of 18:00 minutes. The title track and the closing track "Gather Me Up Forever" are in the slow, heavy, and melancholic doom/death metal style of the debut album while the second track on the EP titled "Le Cerf Malade" is a dark melancholic, atmospheric, and ambient track. Both The title track and "Gather Me Up Forever" are relatively well written material that could well have fit unto the debut album while "Le Cerf Malade" is a bit repetitive and not especially exciting. At 6:31 minutes it also drags and it feels a lot like a filler track.

The sound production is very heavy and dark, suiting the music perfectly. So upon conclusion "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" both has good and not so interesting moments, but especially the title track is quite the great track. "Gather Me Up Forever" is a rather standard quality track though and as mentioned "Le Cerf Malade" isn´t much to write home about, so a 3 star (60%) rating isn´t all wrong.