Band:	With Passion
Album:	In The Midst Of Bloodied Soil
Style:	Technical metalcore
Release date:	March 21, 2005
A review by:	Herzebeth

01. Train Wreck Orchestra
02. The Last Scripture
03. The Scorpions Dance
04. Darkness Doth Bring Mortality
05. Forlorn Hope
06. The Prophecies Of Hellfire
07. A Coniferous War
08. A Theory Of An Evening Sky

With Passion is a good name for a band to begin with, fortunately these guys honor their name by doing music overpoweringly; I can't deny the overall sound is a little uncooked for my taste, there are a some little mistakes in the songwriting and in the musical arrangements, but I'll be honest with you, to be their debut album it's actually intricate, and I'm impressed by the product as a whole.

The music is Metalcore period, most bands in this genre are really unoriginal and dull; but I'm now amazed by seeing good Metalcore bands releasing good stuff such as Knut, Burst and now With Passion. Musically this is not the average Metalcore band doing catchy riffs and simplistic beats; With Passion focuses in creating melodious aggression with a lot of gloomy feelings, the keyboards help a lot in creating all kind of layers towards the music, and that's a big plus actually because most bands use the keyboard fills only to accompany the guitar or the drumming, With Passion does the opposite thing, they use the keyboard fills independently, so while the general music is creating hostile surroundings the keyboards are adding melodious fillings to the mix.

The musical execution is good as I already said (and here comes the first "but") but the vocal tendency is actually poor in contrast with the music; the vocalist does the same shriek all the time and he never adds irregular tones or different layers in his vocalizations, he is way too regular for my taste, so that was a turn-off actually. And as I already said, the songwriting is a little uncooked, the structures are not consistent, instead the songs have a weird time-line that just makes the music weird instead of prodigious, but that wasn't a big downfall at all, this is just something the band has to work and polish for their next album nothing more nothing less.

This band will catch the attention of all the Hardcore/Metalcore fanatics out there willing to check a different and more complex side of this genre; if you are a follower of things like Burst, Caliban or early Zao you'll find here a big masterpiece, so I highly recommend this album to all those persons into the intelligent side of Hardcore.