AGRIMONIA - Awaken Southern Lord The first time I listened to this was late night after work. I wasn't captivated enough to keep it going so instead I went on a film noir of Vincent Price movie binge for two days. I've seen all of those flicks before but hey some are good while others lack enough Price and the seem boring. Which brings me back to this release. I've heard this all before and while some things are decent there still a boredom factor to contend with. AGRIMONIA are not a new band in fact they've been around for a decade (although it's the first time for me hearing em) with a handful of releases under their belt. They're basically a side project from Gothenburg, Sweden featuring one guy from AT THE GATES and two guys from MIASMAL plus two other people one of whom is their female vocalist. Since the guys in AT THE GATES and MIASMAL have decent enough death metal day jobs I can see why this band has a sporadic time table for releasing material. As with many side projects the idea behind them is to get together to create music different then what they usually do. In AGRIMONIA's case they answer the question what if ARCH ENEMY went full on melodic death doom and added flourishes of post metal something or other in order to fill gaps and extend length of songs. The vocalist, Christina Blom, utilizes a decent feral blackened growl throughout. Unfortunately that's all she's got as far as a vocal delivery. No variations what so ever emanate from her fried vocal chords. In an era where female vocalists in extreme metal are not new and display plenty of variety and talent you'd expect more. Now with all that said this third full length from AGRIMONIA is not just a package of microwave Swedish meatballs (aka: looks great on the package but tastes bland). The band has some good material on this six song package. "Withering" is an absolute masterpiece with KATATONIA death doom sorrow, old fashioned hardcore rockin and progressive moments of filler. I'd say Christina's style of singing works best on here. Also there's "Foreshadowed" which is another cut featuring some intricate guitar work opening the cut before the melodic death rhythms kick in. In the end it's a decent release. https://www.southernlord.com/ https://agrimoniasl.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/agrimonia.swe
Some releases really take no time to talk about. You know their names and what to expect, so do I. Here's a bunch of short reviews on those easy to handle releases. IMMOLATION - Atonement Nuclear Blast I must admit that IMMOLATION are my favorite NYDM act, have been since their debut. They've done well with combining the ferocity with the technical sides of death metal. In a word, they are consistent even at this point with this their tenth full length. BUT with all of that comes the expectations of each new release. Personally I think they peaked with 2011's Majesty and Decay and they have been coasting ever since. So this one's just a decent coaster. http://www.nuclearblast.de/en/shop/index.html WOLFBRIGADE - Run With The Hunted Southern Lord After listening to this I wanna play some POISON IDEA (aka: real hardcore). By the way the promo tagline on this is " d-beat, hardcore, crust-punk fury". Yeah whatever, basically I remember this Swedish band as WOLFPACK in the late nineties and later in the 2000s they changed it to WOLFBRIGADE. I remember some indie rock losers were really into em back then and since they had a member(s) from ANTI-CIMEX in the band that gave em street cred. Actually this ain't a bad release especially since they're totally borrowing riffs (I'll be nice and won't say steal) from POISON IDEA. https://www.southernlord.com/ NIDINGR - The High Heat Licks Against Heaven Indie Recordings This is Teloch's other band which he was in previously prior to joining MAYHEM. I think the only reason Indie Records (a label I've always liked and have quite a few releases by) will move any copies of this is because of the MAYHEM connection. Be that as it may this sucks, it blows and it's not black metal. Musically it's more in the vein of a wanna be blackened latter day VOIVOD with an emo style vocalist and Teloch uses leftover riffs from Esoteric Warfare which was not that good of a release. http://shop.indierecordings.no/ HARK - Machinations Season of Mist This shit reminds me of the FOO FIGHTERS or QUEENS OF THE STONEAGE style shit mixed with BARONESS and MASTODON. Basically we're talking about indie metal from years ago, which indie rock losers went apeshit over and got major airplay on college radio, mixed up with the crap from a few years ago. http://www.season-of-mist.com/
POWER TRIP - Nightmare Logic Southern Lord Listening to this Texas band's second full length is a trip down memory lane. Let me take you back to the late 80s when people in the mainstream metal music industry started seeing slam pits breaking out at thrash shows. To some it was a shock but to those of us in the underground hardcore scene it was nothing new. Yeah people who liked thrash were also into hardcore. Soon you had thrash and hardcore bands on the same bill. It didn't take long for the industry to start signing hardcore bands, place them in the studio with a metal producer and pumping out releases of the new hybrid music genre Crossover. Talk about commercialization but hey it worked and it's legacy still holds to this day. I'll stay away of any mention of metalcore for now. While some people are fine to throw POWER TRIP into the retro thrash bin I am not. Opener "Soul Sacrifice" is definitely on par with second tier 80's thrash but once "Executioner's Tax (Swing of the Axe)" kicks in the riffs and shout out vocals take on the past with vigor. "Firing Squad" is a slam pit worthy rager. Hell I could keep going through each song but fuck that. The one factor that defines this all is vocalist Riley Gale. It's his vocals which has me thinking DRI more than say VIO-LENCE, for lack of a better choice. Either way it's a great release and I hate the fact that when they played locally. I had to work but hey DRI is coming in August. http://www.southernlord.com/ https://www.facebook.com/powertripTX/
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In Jan. 2020 some not so nice person(s), who obviously don't care for Metal, decided to complain to a social media platform about something I posted. That got me banned from posting links there under the former blog title Scumfeast Metal 666. Fine I just changed the name to what you see now. Hey I'm still here and, under our present day situation, will be more extreme then before.
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Extreme Metal or Music is generally a form which is accepted by 1% of all of the music loving public. It is elitist in every way and that's important to those of us who call ourselves fans. The 99% of people who will not like it are Not Supposed To. The music wasn't made for them, "the masses". It's music that's for those who take things to that "other" level. There is nothing hip or fad about it. In fact I treat those two notions very harshly.
