UMUR Guided by Fire is the debut full-length studio album by sludge/ melodic metal act Ghost Brigade from Finland. The album was released through Season of Mist in September 2007. Three of the members of Ghost Brigade played together in Finnish stoner metal act Sunride before forming Ghost Brigade.

The music on Guided by Fire is simple vers/ chorus structured and the songs are generally about 3 - 5 minutes in length. The main influences are Isis and Katatonia to my ears. As such the music is rather formulaic with few surprises but the rough sludge parts with raw vocals are complimented greatly by the darker and more melancholic Katatonia influenced parts with clean vocals. This is the kind of album that´s best the first 5 - 10 times you listen to it though and after that there´s simply too little meat on the bone for the album to to grow more. But when the quality is as high as it is on Guided by Fire that´s perfectly acceptable. The musicianship and the production are also of high quality so if you can live with the relatively simple songwriting approach but with great melancholic emotions this might be the thing for you.

Guided by Fire is a promising debut album by Ghost Brigade. I hope they expand upon their already very professional songwriting skills and take their music to more adventurous territories on the follow up. Then they would really have my attention. A 3 - 3.5 star rating is deserved.