Reviewed by Peter John Willoughby

In The Midst Of Lions are from St Louis, Missouri and the story goes that their drummer came up with the band's name. Later on, one of their friends was reading Scripture and stumbled upon Psalms 57:4 (when David was hiding in a cave from Saul) "I am in the midst of lions: I lie among ravenous beasts - men whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongues are sharp swords". The group released 'Out Of Darkness' on Strike First Records and rapidly graduated to Facedown. 'The Heart Of Man' album title comes from The Lord Of The Rings movie, "The hearts of men are easily corrupted". The band's style has moved from death metal to deathcore, meaning that the vocals are now deep growls. The project was recorded with Jamie King (For Today, Between The Buried And Me). Their music has been compared to Meshuggah and The Faceless the difference being that ITMOL show a serious spiritual commitment. As you would expect from deathcore, their sound has been described as sonically crushing. The guitars chug along to ample helpings of double bass drumming while the growled lyrics hit home "The hearts of men are easily corrupted and through these eyes you can see the deceiver's grip on them all, controlling every thought/We are lost, with no minds of our own/This world is where the heart lies/There is no love in those dead eyes/Here is the Saviour/Here is the sacrifice". They explore greed and the capitalist system in 'The Machine'. One respite from the growled vocals is a spoken word portion in "Abandonment". One of the standout tracks is "Defiance" ("What a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living God/Screaming, 'It's not my fault!'/But the Devil does not fight fair"). Towards the end the music dies back to clanging riffs with guest vocals by Levi The Poet; he delivers shouted accusations from the day of judgement day "I never knew you/I don't care!/And while you stood on the street corners, screaming your prayers, I starved to death, naked and bare!/ But you never cared!/You never turned your head as I begged beneath pointing, crooked fingers attached to crooked, faithless men!" There are also guest vocals by Phil from Red Baron on "Fearless".

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