With Life In Mind - Grievances

Artist: With Life In Mind
Album: Grievances
Release Date: 9/14/10
Label: CI Records

Lately, the state of Pennsylvania has been bringing up some of the biggest bands in the metal scene, consisting of War of Ages, August Burns Red and Texas In July, to name a few. Well, you can now welcome With Life In Mind to that list, one of the best up and coming bands to the scene. Their heavy debut Grievances serves as a solid start to their career, full of superb double bass drumming and heavy breakdowns that certainly attack your ears. Drawing comparisons to August Burns Red, I'm sure that many fans of metalcore will find something to like about With Life In Mind.

Grievances starts right off with the short title track, that serves as more of an intro, building up into "King Of Frauds," which is full of adrenaline pumping riffs to get you off your feet. "The Struggle Of Men" explodes immediately after it's predecessor, which has one of the best vocal performances heard throughout the album, including a breakdown proclaiming "We are the weak, we are the slaves to freedom!" The title of the song sums up the albums theme as well, which talks of the struggles of a man searching for a bigger purpose in life.

In the midst of the heaviness brought with Grievances comes a minute long instrumental named "One Day It Will All Make Sense" that has a near ambient feel to it. A few gang vocals are found on the album, but only in very small quantities, such as on the closer "Our Endless Existence" that wraps up the album.

However, Grievances is not without some flaws, one being the production. For the most part, it has a heavy and solid sense to it, but at other times, some of the production effects lost me at times. One other thing that I noticed is that some of the tracks seemed to flow together a bit to much, but in all, they don't take away from the solid debut from With Life In Mind.

Rating: 7/10 With Life In Mind have started it off right, with the solid debut of Grievances. Fans of August Burns Red will be happy with this quality metalcore album, that is however not without a few flaws. Look for big things from With Life In Mind to come.

Tracklisting:

1. Grievances
2. King Of Frauds
3. The Collapse Of Men
4. Anxiety Ridden
5. Surroundings
6. One Day It Will All Make Sense
7. The Human Condition
8. Plagued
9. Silenced
10. Self-Righteous
11. Our Endless Existence

(Buy Here)