My Passion // Your Pain (My Passion Your Pain - Callenish Circle)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	My Passion Your Pain - Callenish Circle
Date:	06/04/08 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reminds you how good Dark Tranquillity used to be.

Disadvantages: Dark Tranquillity are still doing an adequate job of that without these guys' help.

While Holland's Callenish Circle aren't exactly set to be the saviours of melodic death metal, they're certainly one of the more interesting bands still active in a genre that essentially peaked over ten years ago, and is now plagued by endless copycat artists taking the sound in increasingly unsatisfying directions. Callenish Circle wear their influences on their bloodied sleeves, covering a death metal classic from Pestilence at the finale and even offering their own "answer" of sorts to Dark Tranquillity's 1995 song 'Mine is the Grandeur of Melancholy Burning' with the title suite of this release; although no comparison is expressly stated, the similarities are evident.

Unfortunately, for those looking for something new to revive melodeath, these three songs towards the end ('My Passion//' and '//Your Pain' with the bisecting acoustic interlude 'Conflicts') represent the only progressive achievement here, with the rest sounding like more At the Gates worship. The production values are faultless, which actually works against this album retaining any sort of individual character above the clinically hammering drums and guitar riffs that have really all started to sound the same by this point.

Callenish Circle are still an interesting band that are at least helping to keep melodic death metal enjoyable even if they flatly refuse to take it anywhere interesting. These albums arguably arrived too late to be afforded the same iconic status as the classics of the genre, but the band would perhaps be the first to admit that they really needed those works as influence. At least Dark Tranquillity's still going strong.

1. Soul Messiah
2. Dwelling in Disdain
3. Forsaken
4. What Could Have Been
5. This Truculent Path
6. My Hate Unfolds
7. Misled
8. My Passion //
9. Conflicts
10. // Your Pain
11. Out of the Body (Pestilence cover)

Summary: Callenish Circle's fourth album (2003).