Nightfly I wasn’t sure if the eponymous debut album released by With The Dead in 2015 might have turned out to be a one off, especially with former Cathedral mainman Lee Dorrian having his hands full running his Rise Above Records label. Anyway I’m pleased to see them back with album number two though this time minus former Electric Wizard drummer Mark Greening leaving guitarist Tim Bagshaw the only former member of that band left. In comes drummer Alex Thomas and bassist Leo Smee.

Love From With The Dead pretty much picks things up using the same template as their debut. In other words crushingly heavy doom metal – all fuzzy guitars and a bottom end so heavy it’s a wonder the stylus managed to stay in the grooves on my vinyl copy. First impressions are of little growth from the debut with opener Isolation’s slow and heavy crawl sounding pretty much like most of it. Egyptian Tomb ups the tempo slightly whilst maintaining the same sonic qualities. Initially I felt a bit disappointed with the riffs lacking memorability and it all seeming a bit one dimensional as doom sometimes can. However after a few plays the songs started to take hold with some decent melodies buried in the murk with some compelling guitar riffs and motifs taking hold. Whilst occasionally the songs outstay their welcome there’s generally enough in the way of subtle changes to maintain the interest. Watching The Ward Goes By sees a deviation from the generally cacophonous nature of most the material opening with cleanly strummed guitars and tom toms very low in the mix with Dorrian adopting a spoken word vocal. As expected it eventually explodes though with a funeral doom pace.

Most of the songs are pretty long, the shortest being Reincarnation Of Yesterday at 6:25, but nothing comes close to CVI which at 17:35 closes the album. It’s a slow burn into the realms of funeral doom pace once more. It meanders along somewhat aimlessly doing little to justify its length and it’s a bit of a relief when it’s over. It could have said all it had to say in half the length so a slightly disappointing close to the album.

Love From With The Dead is considerably longer than the debut and whilst it’s often very good, sometimes excellent, a bit of editing could have produced an album that matched the debut. As it is, it outstays its welcome somewhat with that final track and although it’s good to have them back I can see myself returning to the debut more than this.

UMUR "With the Dead" is the self-titled debut full-length studio album by UK doom metal act With the Dead. The album was released through Rise Above Records in October 2015. The lineup consists of three rather prolific doom metal musicians in lead vocalist Lee Dorian (Cathedral, Napalm Death), and the original rhythm section of Electric Wizard, drummer Mark Greening and bassist/guitarist Tim Bagshaw.

Stylistically the music on the album sounds exactly how you´d expect it to sound with the musicians involved. Cathedral meets Electric Wizard isn´t the worst description of the music. It´s the dark and most doom laden Cathedral though (so don´t expect any silly yeahs and oohs here) and the extremely bass heavy and vintage influenced Electric Wizard elements combined. The bass literally threatens to blast your eardrums or maybe cause your chest to implode, that´s how delightfully heavy this is. The dark and gloomy atmosphere is a real treat too, and the lyrics follow suit, which song titles like "Living with the Dead" and "Screams from My Own Grave", are a testament to.

The musicianship is tight yet organic, and it´s obvious that the three guys playing/singing are seasoned veterans of the scene. Lee Dorian still can´t hit a clean note if it came up an hit him in the ass, but regardless of that there is an irresistable charm to his voice and delivery. And wisely enough he limits his use of range here to a minimum. His performance has the right dark, occult, and "evil" sound, which suits the instrumental part of the music well. All material on the 6 track, 41:57 minutes long album is well written and consistent in both quality and style. I´ll mention "Nephthys" among the standout tracks, but as mentioned the remaining tracks are certainly worth a mention too.

"With the Dead" is generally a very gloomy and brick heavy album. The crushingly doomy riffs and heavy beats are further enhanced by the raw and powerful sound production. It´s not that the listener is left with many surprises as you more or less get what you´d expect considering the musicians involved, but the quality of the material, the performances, and the powerful sound production, still make "With the Dead" a high quality doom metal release and a 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Nightfly With The Dead are a new UK doom metal band formed by former Cathedral vocalist Lee Dorrian and the original Electric Wizard rhythm section Tim Bagshaw and Mark Greening on bass and drums respectively. Bagshaw also handles guitar duties here as he did in Ramesses, the band he and Greening were members of after leaving Electric Wizard.

With the musicians involved here it should come as no surprise that With The Dead is one heavy mutha of an album. In fact it’s very much what I was expecting. The music bears more resemblance to Electric Wizard than Cathedral excepting their ground breaking debut “Forest Of Equilibrium” which parallels can be drawn. The album consists of just six tracks – all slow, heavy, fuzzy doom metal of the kind of quality you’d expect from these seasoned players. “The Cross” picks up the pace a bit, but this is relatively speaking of course. Quite a short album by today’s standards, none of the songs outstay their welcome clocking in around the six to nine minute mark, but stick around long enough to establish some hypnotic grooves that really get under your skin after a few plays. Highlight for me has got to be “Living With The Dead” with its insistent repetitive riff that once heard doesn’t want to leave your head but the rest of the album is of similar quality. Dorrian’s instantly recognisable vocals are darker and dirtier than most of his Cathedral Output though their final album “The Last Spire” did see a partial return to earlier times.

It’s good to have Dorrian back fronting a band again and not just running his Rise Above Records label. Hopefully this will be more than a one off as its one of the best doom records of 2015.