Artist: The Agonist
Title: Prisoners
Genre: Metalcore
Release Date: 1st June 2012
Label: Century Media Records
Album Review
Many can probably remember THE AGONIST back in their earlier days of 2007 when their debut hit the streets and many thought, “Wow… what another rip off of ARCH ENEMY or ETHS.” Since then, the band has proved wrong time and time again with live shows and a sophomore effort that weaves an excellent story with ‘Lullabies For The Dormant Mind’. Breaking out of their rut, THE AGONIST have taken a little more time with their latest effort ‘Prisoners’, but it is only a step up the ladder. Right from the start one can see that the vocals have improved again. White-Gluz still has her well defined shriek, some growling here and there, but her singing is fantastic. On a track like ‘The Escape’ her vocals shine with both the range of a Symphonic Metal singer and just a direct, Hard Rock chick belt. Plus, she varies her voices all over the place, trying to avoid the typical ‘harsh verse, clean chorus’ structure that so many Metalcore/ Melodic Death Metal bands tend to fall into, although sometimes it can’t be helped. ‘Predator and Prayer’ is an excellent example of how atypical THE AGONIST can try to be.
The guitars are certainly more engineered a bit towards the Melodic Death Metal side through the dual assault of Marino and Jobin such as on ‘You’re Coming With Me’, and when combined with the ferocious drumming of McKay it sounds even better; sadly like most high output Metal bands the bass work from Kells is a bit lost, but once can always assume his sound is right alongside the guitars and never faltering. The only track to really feature his work standing out is on ‘Everybody Wants You (Dead)’. Not only is this another experimental track with White-Gluz’s singing, the bass is almost jazzy and puts the band in a whole new category of ‘Progressive Metalcore’. The quartet’s work sounds the best on the band’s attempt at the epic ‘Ideomotor’. One half basic song and the other instrumental, this track continues to push boundaries for THE AGONIST to show what they are capable of. Altogether, ‘Prisoners’ brings a new style to THE AGONIST while still holding onto the roots of the original Metalcore they were going for back with their debut. It’s on par with ‘Lullabies…’ but in a whole different ball park that makes it a unique listen. It is a little more slightly commercial- especially with a lot more use of the clean vocals- but not generic at all.
Tracklist
01. You're Coming With Me - 5:35
02. The Escape - 4:08
03. Predator and Prayer - 5:04
04. Anxious Darwinians - 5:23
05. Panophobia - 3:54
06. Ideomotor - 8:07
07. Lonely Solipsist - 3:45
08. Dead Ocean - 6:19
09. The Mass of the Earth - 4:40
10. Everybody Wants You (Dead) - 5:00
11. Revenge of the Dadaists - 6:42
Line-up
Alissa White-Gluz – Vocals
Danny Marino – Guitar
Pascal “Paco” Jobin – Guitar
Chris Kells – Bass
Simon McKay – Drums
Website
www.facebook.com/theagonistofficial
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 9
Total: 8.5 / 10
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