01.Crown Of Burning Stars
02.The Cross
03.Nephthys
04.Living With The Dead
05.I Am Your Virus
06.Screams From My Own Grave
Lee Dorrian (vocals)
Tim Bagshaw (Guitar/Bass)
Mark Greening (Drums)
With The Dead were formed on All Hallow’s Eve 2014 by the rhythm section of occultist Doom overloads Electric Wizard: guitarist/bassist Tim Bagshaw (also a current member of Serpentine Path) and drummer Mark Greening, a pair once notorious for the sheer brute heaviness of their bowel-shaking sound and early extra-curricular activities that involved excess, injury and low-level criminality (arrests for the theft of a crucifix from a church roof and drunkenly robbing an off-licence to name but two). Both have also played together in Ramesses.
Completing the triangle is frontman Lee Dorrian, co-founder of Doom pioneers Cathedral, former frontman with grindcore legends Napalm Death and owner of Rise Above Records, the UK’s finest independent purveyors of all sounds heavy and underground.
Atmospheric intro and then we launch into 'Crown Of Burning Stars' a slow, pounding six minutes of pure doom heaven (or should that be hell?).
'The Cross' adds more to the mix with some speech samples and a slightly more upbeat sound and some effects added to the vocals, wild and agressive!
Time for saome Sabbath worship with 'Nephthys' sounding like something off the Vol4 album, this one has a slight psychedelic undertone, it's maybe unfair of me to say but this sounds like classic Cathedral, but then it was kinda what i was expecting and hoping for.
'Living With The Dead' starts with a movie sample and then just crashes through the speakers, doom (obviously!) with some sludge thrown in and an almost punk attitude coming through with taht vocal scream and snarl.
It's the quiet, melodic breakdown that really gives this song some additional weight, great guitar playing, and then another huge scream and its more pure power to the end.
Not sure what instrument is making it, but 'I Am Your Virus' has this strange synth type sound running through the mix from speaker to speaker, its fucking awesome whatever it is, this is by far my fave so far, huge riffs, big drum rhythms, pounding bassline and Lee's stunning vocal performance all mixing together to make this huge out of this world psych/doom monster!
Opening to this reminds me of Triptykon's "Shatter", very slow rhythms played out on the intro and then they put their own stamp on it and 'Screams From My Own Grave' becomes this eight minute slow, painful downtuned doom sludge creature crawling it way inch by inch from the depths of hell until it reaches the surface.
Well this is nothing short of perfect doom, a masterclass from the masters, what did you expect?
Rating 10/10
For fans of: Cathedral, Electric Wizard, Witchsorrow, Moss, Reverend Bizarre
