I think of it as the most difficult album by the British duo to date. Stagnation was never the case for the band so far and although there are obvious changes between subsequent albums (e.g. from “Eschaton” to “Hell Is Empty And All The Devils Are Here”), I believe this is the first time they are attempting to reach a more technical edge.
Inevitably I separated the traditional black metal/grindcore tracks ala Anaal Nathrakh and those with progressive elements. So we have the raw violence of “Volenti Non Fit Iniuria”, “Le Diabolique Est L’ami Du Simplement Mal”, “Paragon Pariah” (with a Marduk-styled riff) and “Locus Of Damnation” sounding familiar and fantastic to my ear and songs like “Tod Huetet Uebel” with a huge vocal variety (from brutal to clean and melodic) and continuous technical riffs. In any case I prefer the band’s straight-forward extreme aggression than the new approach they are introducing us with in “Passion”. Fact is that even the progressive parts or the soft vocals cannot kill the dark industrial atmosphere.
The way I see it “Passion” is an equally qualitative, strong and interesting continuation of “In The Constellation Of The Black Widow”. For some reason I’m expecting numerous changes to come in the future though.
