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Tuesday 19 September 2017
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 Dead
from 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 Thomas
do 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.