ave you noticed lately that most metalcore acts do photo shoots where they look like easy-to-be-listened-to musicians (you know nice haircuts, jeans, t-shirts or nice polo shirts)? I know I 've noticed it, so when I saw With Passion's picture on the back side of the promo I thought oh no, here goes my mentality. How come such nice looking people are able to play such a twisted mutation of Hardcore / Metal?
With Passion come from Sacramento, California. The band was formed in the summer of 2002 from local Sacramento bands Athena in Hades, Severance and Impulse 120. After some lineup changes, the band arrived at its current lineup.
Hardcore, blast beats, technical (to the point of sounding spastic) Death Metal, keyboards, brutal vocals... this is the known recipe for such kind of bands. Love them or hate them I say. But you have to admit it: they play so fucking well and complicated, it's impossible to now have your attention drawn by their music. Some may say this is just noise, sorry but it's not. Beneath the chaos of With Passion's music lie well mature compositions, fine technical guitar work, genius use of keyboards... definitely not the works of handicaps.
The production has done an amazing job, considering it's a difficult task to put chaos in some kind of order, in here. OK, the artwork looks a little invalid since it brings in mind atmospheric Metal albums but also works as another link in the chain of this band's persona. In its 33 minutes of running time In The Midst Of Bloodied Soil delivers well crafted music and I just wonder: are all these dudes able of recreating this live? I would love to see that!