| If you saw most of the members of With Passion on the street, you might think they were on their way to a Story of the Year concert. It wouldn't occur to most that they specialized in a brand of technical, melodic and distinctly European-sounding death/black metal, nor would it seem obvious that they're one of the biggest stories to surface from the burgeoning Sacramento metal scene in recent months.
Unhappy with the band that they were members of at the time, guitarist Shawn Gier and drummer Jacob Peete began forming their own band in 2002.
“We set out to just do our own thing,” Gier says. “We weren’t exactly having too much say in the music.
“So me and this kid started playing together. In times we were supposed to be practicing the other songs, we started writing our own songs.”
It was then that Gier and Peete decided to form their own band, adding Samuel McLeod as vocalist and going through more line-up changes until the band consisted of Peete, Gier, McLeod, guitarist Andy Burt, and bassist Mike Nordeen.
“Then,” continues Gier, “through a ridiculously poorly made flyer that we made out of, like, bubble gum and just smeared—pretty much hand paint, Brandon joined the assault.”
“We spelled ‘Dimmu Borgir’ wrong,” McLeod jokes.
“The flyer was definitely black metal,” says keyboardist Brandon Guadagnolo, referencing the laughably low-budget advertising methods employed by underground black metal bands, particularly in Norway.
Officially signed with Earache records as of early November, the six-man outfit now prepares for whatever is about to be thrown at them as the release of their worldwide debut, a re-issue of the 2004 EP "In the Midst of Bloodied Soil," inches ever closer to its February 2005 due date.
So far, the pressure doesn't seem to be getting to them.
"I smile every second of every day," says Peete. "I fall asleep smiling."
According to guitarist Andrew Burt, the deal came about when the band's manager, Eric Rushing sent a copy of "In the Midst...." to the England-based record label.
"And they gave him a call back the next day from what we hear," Burt says.
Impressed with the band's history of appearing alongside well-known artists such as Six Feet Under, Himsa, As I Lay Dying and Shadows Fall (both live and on recording), Earache kept their tabs on With Passion, monitoring their progress until the deal was finally inked.
After finishing up this next round of shows, the band will put themselves on a three-month hiatus from touring to complete writing for their first full-length album, set to arrive some time in 2006. From there, the band plans to embark on what they hope will be a worldwide tour to support the re-release of "In the Midst of Bloodied Soil."
"If it's gonna be worldwide, we gotta go where the audience is," Burt says. The band is particularly hopeful about the prospect of playing in Europe, which they believe contains unique opportunities for the proliferation of their style of ambient, Scandinavian-influenced extreme metal.
| The band's close association with the hardcore genre, however, (not to mention their plainclothes getup) seems to have led to some confusion about just what the hell it is that they play.
"Usually, they'll call the younger bands from the United States 'metalcore'," Peete says.
"No matter what you play," interjects vocalist Sam McLeod.
"Just your look and your age. That's it," adds Burt.
"I would call it black metal," says Guadagnolo, formerly of the Central Valley black metal band Disharmony. Interestingly enough, with his long, jet-black hair and clear favoritism towards dark clothing, Guadagnolo is the only member of the band that looks qualitatively "metal" by most standards.
While each member of the band has his own opinion on what With Passion's musical aesthetics may or may not be called (McLeod notes the death-like tendencies, while Peete would sooner stick with plain ol' "metal" as a classifier), a witness to one of the band's live performances or listener to their recorded material can quite easily tell that they are anything but divided, musically speaking.
Characterized by explosively complex drum patterns and guitar harmonies, as well as compositions that play hopscotch all over conventional traditional “foot tapping” rhythms, With Passion’s style maintains the unwieldiness of hardcore while simultaneously staying in touch with the virtuosity and melodiousness of modern European death and black metal, due in large part to Brandon Guadagnolo’s atmospheric and classically inclined keyboard work.
All this and more are evidenced on the “In the Midst of Bloodied Soil” EP, which, in addition to featuring all of the above, is bookended by two unaccompanied and rather quiet instrumental pieces that showcase the band’s impeccable sense of melody.
To see them live is to know for certain what you knew all along but were still a little skeptical about. Which sort of begs the question, with an almost punkish demeanor consisting of t-shirts, jeans, boots and bowl cuts, how will European audiences react to a band that’s clearly skilled at this genre but doesn’t even remotely look the part?
“Kind of the reactions we got when we first started playing,” McLeod says. From this statement alone, it’s obvious With Passion are no strangers to disbelief.
“No one expects it,” says bassist Mike Nordeen.
McLeod says “it kind of works for us.”
“I think it’s a better surprise for people when they see a bunch of guys that don’t look ‘metal’,” says Burt. “We do fine live on our own without the corpse paint.”
“Madness” and “chaos” are two of the words that With Passion don’t hesitate to utter when talking about their full-length album.
“It’s still gonna be melodic,” McLeod says. “But I must say it’s a lot more technical.”
Shaun Gier chimes in, “The old stuff tore the skin off your face, but this one like actually cuts your head off.”
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