ALBUM REVIEW: With The Dead - "Love From With The Dead"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 22/09/2017

Label: Rise Above Records

The opening quartet of tracks here offers up a relentless onslaught of earth-shaking doom. Tim Bagshaw is on fine form, unleashing an endless stream of mammoth riffs and lead guitar that channel the hazy evil of his finest moments in Ramesses.  Lee Dorrian’s half spoken, half roared vocals work well in amongst the carnage and are a breath of fresh air in the modern doom landscape.

“Love From With The Dead” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Isolation

2). Egyptian Tomb

3). Reincarnation of Yesterday

4). Cocaine Phantoms

5). Watching the Ward Goes By

6). Anemia

7). CV1

The Review:

The future of With The Dead seemed bleak following the sudden dismissal of Mark Greening shortly after the release of their debut. New LP “Love From With The Dead” shows there is plenty of life left within these undead servants of the riff.

It’s noticeable even from the bowel-churning opening notes of “Isolation” that “Love From With The Dead” is a different proposition from the band’s debut. Fortunately there is no change on the punishing heaviness front, but the strange atmosphere of their first album has been supplanted by a more conventional production and sound that befits the development of With The Deadfrom a studio project to a full live band. 

The opening quartet of tracks here offers up a relentless onslaught of earth-shaking doom. Tim Bagshaw is on fine form, unleashing an endless stream of mammoth riffs and lead guitar that channel the hazy evil of his finest moments in Ramesses, particularly during the epic churn of “Egyptian Tomb”. Lee Dorrian’s half spoken, half roared vocals work well in amongst the carnage and are a breath of fresh air in the modern doom landscape. The new rhythm section of Leo Smee and Alex Thomasdo a grand job of laying down an unshakeable foundation of low-end filth. 

With The Dead could probably draw upon an infinite well of sludged-up ragers like “Reincarnation Of Yesterday” and “Anemia” but it’s the deviations from the script that lead to the album’s finest moments. “Watching The Ward Go By” is a haunting and crushing dirge built around a single, desolate chord sequence. It emerges from a fog of eerie faraway sounds as a hushed, funereal hymn with Lee Dorrian’s spoken intonations heightening the dread. Around the mid-point the track erupts into a distorted nightmare that wrings maximum torment from the glorious monotony.

The best is saved for last in the form of the monstrous 17 minute “CV1”. It begins in familiar territory with lumbering riffs acting as a perfect foil to Dorrian’s impassioned rant about the sad decline of his home of Coventry. Around the mid-point the band lock into a minimal droning groove that the band hammer into oblivion. This acts as the backdrop for swirling psychedelic sounds and a rising tide of harsh electronic squall that finds With The Dead moving into a higher dimension of dark, mind-expanding noise.

“Love From With The Dead” could probably do with trimming some of its mammoth sixty minute plus duration to maximise impact but this is a minor complaint. This is a massive offering from With The Dead that demonstrates the band are still a force to be reckoned with in terms of heaviness and hints at a weirder future ahead.  

“Love From With The Dead” is available here

Band info: facebook