Withered Beauty (hereafter called WB) was formed in mid 1993 by Magnus Björk and Daniel Bryntse in their hometown Gävle, Sweden. In January 1994 Tobias Björklund joined the band and a couple of months later a first demo »Screams from the forest« was recorded. It contained eight songs, some from days of Complicity (this band is WB's ancestor) and some were even written before those days and other newly written material. The style was mainly melodic death/black metal. The demo wasn't distributed very much so no label got in touch with WB. About a year later, in April 1995, a second demo was recorded (named »Through the silent skies«), containing six songs. WB drifted a bit more towards melodic death metal, but there were influences of black metal as well. This demo wasn't distributed much either, but a few minor labels contacted WB although nothing happened. Later on in the same year, in June, Tobias was called in to do his military service and the band was put on hold for over a year.
In September 1996 Nuclear Blast got in touch with WB and presented a record deal. In October the song »Immortality is mine« was recorded for the compilation »Death is just the beginning…vol.IV«. The song also on several other compilations. After some negotiation the contract was signed in May 1997. Peter Tägtgren (mind and soul of Hypocrisy) and his »Abyss studios« was contacted and December 1997 was set as recording date for WB's debut album.
The self-titled album was released in spring 1998 and consisted of ten songs, presenting the history of WB thus far. WB now had a more brutal and raw, unique sound, with three vocalists who had different sounding voices. WB also mixed screams and growls with clean melodic vocals and choirs.
The album was very well recieved with very good reviews in magazines such as Rock Hard (Ger) and many others. But due to too many differences, WB and Nuclear Blast parted in December 1998. Here is what Daniel Bryntse said about that: »We got a letter, a very short one, saying that Nuclear Blast didn't want to release our next album. That was kind of the way they worked most of the time. Unpersonal and almost unprofessional. All money and time seems to be spend on bands like Hammerfall…« At this point Magnus decided to leave the band. His music was no longer coherent with that of WB.
Then for a long time there was nothing happening with WB and many of their fans thought this was the end. But it wasn't! William Blackmon contacted Daniel Bryntse , when he heard that WB was looking for a drummer but in the end both, William and Daniel decided, it would be better if William would play the guitar and not the drums, because he knew how to play a guitar much better. So William became WB's new guitarist, but they still needed a drummer. Soon after that Jonas Lindström joined the band on drums and full line-up was formed. This line-up recorded a song called »The fairest one«, which was supposed to be released on »The voices of death compilation 4«. The band also performed live a couple of times and meanwhile started to look for some labels (that would be interested in releasing Withered beauty's second album) but unfortunately for a long time with no success…
