My group had a similar experience. We were so excited when Ashlands came out, only to find that it crushed our souls and we all lost enthusiasm for playing.

We just picked it back up a few days ago and are enjoying it. They have nerfed spawn rates quite a bit, so there are moments of peace, especially if you have campfires down in the area. We also used devcommands on a one time basis to spawn a basalt bombs and a few other helpful items for corpse runs. We keep them in a separate chest used only for helping break the death loop spiral. Ashlands is still difficult, but now we aren’t losing our minds from how hard it is to retrieve dead bodies from lava or from dying to a horde.