Continuing their trend of releasing solid Christian metal in environmentally friendly digipacks (A Hope for Home, Earth From Above, The Great Commission, Hope for the Dying), Facedown Records, subsidiary label, Strikefirst Records has come up with yet another thunderous Christian deathcore outfit akin to Earth From Above.
Right, now that 90% of you have left. I’ll continue: Though still loosely under the deathcore genre, In The Midst of Lions are more rooted in the hardcore side, than death metal, with a lurching, off kilter approach inspired by Meshuggah and their recent hardcore based fans like older A Life Once Lost, For Today, Left To Vanish and more recently Ion Dissonance, A Plea For Purging and Impending Doom. So despite the presence of some uber gruff death metal vocals, musically Out of Darkness is a generally staggering mid paced record with a focus on stern, angular grooves and steady, hefty poly rhythms as opposed to blast beats and pseudo death metal brutality.
Some melody arises here and there (“He is Risen”, “Herod’s Demise”) by way of some solos but it’s never too noodly or busy like some of their non Christian peers and generally is sandwiched between some rather impressive girthy moments (“Tongues of Fire”, “Field of Blood”, “Manifesto”) that certainly compare favorably to the genres more rumbling moments, though I wouldn’t put these guys at the top of the deathcore heap just yet, as the whole album tends to bleed into one long angular groove at times.
Of course, being a Christian album there some spoken word prayer like moments (“Awaken the Dawn”, “In the Light”) and the standard instrumental breakdown (“Crucifixion and Burial”) and its all glossed in very earthy, beefy production making for a very solid entry into the genre from a label that has a ear for this stuff.
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A Plea For Purging and Impending Doom, are horrible and I like the deathcore genre, but they suck balls
on Aug 17th, 2009 at 15:51Christianity and Heavy Metal are polar opposites.I am literally disgusted by bands like this and can only hope entropy sets in far sooner than later.George Carlin said well with “Thou Shalt Keep Thy Religion To Thyself”.Hearing embarassing choruses about their lord and buttbuddy jesus is something I grew up with and am ashamed of,I couldn’t bring myself to sing in church.And Herod’s Demise?WTF,seriously history is so vague but hey let’s spew out something the kids’ll eat up and can claim makes us a band they can listen to.
Reminds me of The Crimson Massacre,Impending Doom,I literally can’t stand it.Boo!Keep it away!I shouldn’t have to see these crappy bands with my real death metal!/grumpy rant.Review was fine.Sorry to be a dick.Its not for me,moving on.
on Aug 20th, 2009 at 18:22You know what, Desperado? YOU can leave! *points thumb at the door*
Now that the morons are gone, I agree this is a very god one. It’s not really original, it sounds like Veil of Maya meets a much heavier For Today, but damn if it isn’t done well. And christian or not you can’t help but admit the badassery of “Now tell me, as the worms consume your flesh, DO YOU FEAR MY GOD NOW?!” lolololol
Probably not top material compared to Plea for Purging but I’ll be listening to this one for a while.
on Aug 26th, 2009 at 23:52Yeah, religion in music is annoying, but if it’s good, let it happen. This album, in particular, is slammin. Great album. Among boring Jesuscore, and even more boring trendydeathcore, they create a sound that I can pick out. Angular is a good word to describe them, kudos to the reviewer. I love their use of tiny snare rolls, especially on Paid in Full. Great breakdowns, great tapping, nice callouts, and solid, lumbering, slow metalcore.
on May 13th, 2010 at 19:46