With the Dead, Love from With The Death, A Review (2017)

With the Dead, Love from With The Death, A Review (2017)

By: Erreh Svaia

Transcendental Music

Lee Dorrian is an instinctual iconoclast, he decided first to join one of the most innovative extreme metal bands of its era, Napalm Death, who created some of the most daring music in England in the era of the Grindcore, then, he decided to leave them just as the band was moving out of the underground and becoming immensely successful, for Dorrian success equaled selling out, so in complete and drastic contrast to ND´s hyper fast hardcore metal compositions, he created Cathedral, first an ultra-slow grinding band ( ac complete opposite to ND), that evolved to become a pioneering Doom/ Stoner band that once again lead Dorrian into global success, as the band was again becoming immensely famous, Lee decided to quite the legendary band in order to start all over once again with another extreme metal outfit, this time enigmatically named With The Dead, whose first album was issued a couple of years ago, although it wasn't so satisfying to me, but Dorrian always keeps on moving, always an non-conformist, and with this second effort and some personnel changes, it’s obvious that the man is fearless as he is trying hard once again, oddly enough putting his infamous vocals in the background and letting drums, guitars and bass dominate the mix, no cult of the ego for Dorrian, who instead of taking advantage of his extreme metal star status, has decided to focus once again on the music of his new band, and the results are simply astonishing this time.

Now, the first thing that comes to my mind after a few seconds of listening to this (ironically titled…) Love from With the Dead, is The Melvins, the infamous Washington state band in one of their earliest stages, when they were moving away from their hardcore roots and listening more to bands like Flipper or Black Sabbath, becoming painfully slower and heavier than anyone else, and although With the Dead is obviously closer to metal than what The Melvins could have ever dreamed of been, the feel of overdosing on slowness and heaviness is omnipresent, first track Isolation is a grotesque orgy of ultra-slow guitar riffs, mammoth drumming, thanks to the presence of superb drummer Alex Thomas, a top notch veteran on the British rock scene, and Dorrian's tormented chanting on the back of the mix, not too far removed from the early days of Cathedral, regaining that cosmic feel, remaining more metal oriented but with an avant garde twist keeping them apart from the doom/stoner tag, next track, Egyptian Tomb again moves on with a slow grinding pace and magical psychedelic guitar arrangement, with a bass lurking like a reptile and Dorrian more lost into the void than ever, Dorrian might not be a great singer, but the man knows how to use his vocals as another instrument to add dimension and character to the songs he sing, essential to the overall dark oppressive feel, guitars by Tim Bagshaw are obvious highlights on the theme, but the drumming never stops and remain brutal throughout the piece, adding density and lethal precision.

Adding some evil twists comes Reincarnation of Yesterday, featuring a stellar drum work and black magic “wah-wah” guitars along a grinding bass, with Dorrian approaching the melody with almost punk attitude, leaving unsuspected space in order to build a different type of atmosphere, with the band giving themselves plenty of room to experiment, there's more than a mystical invocation of terror throughout the album, but also some hints to Poe induced nightmares like on the truly scary Cocaine Phantoms, with the band going really old school into a song that gives up a little volume in order to recall some classic Sabbath sounds, letting themselves get lost into truly doom dimension on the whole song, yes, the band lose focus at some times, like on Watching the Ward Go By or in Anemia, but that's just before going all put on the freaking Cv1, a full recollection and resume of what this exciting band is capable of, a monstrously dense mammoth song full of Dorrian's black magic incantations, dense, steaming doom guitars and slow destructive drums, this is grinding slow core at its best, the brutal antithesis of black metal raw delivery, the horrid stuff nightmares are made of, with a great chaotic almost maniac finale, Dorrian´s muse is once again on its right place, and Dorrian is once again bringing us an awesome metal feast.