Let’s be honest with each other, for at least 80% of us, the
thing about The Agonist that initially caught our eye was the vocalist. I mean
seriously, it’s kind of hard to pass by an EXTREMELY attractive female human
being with luscious bright blue hair. This is something that a lot of people
(especially reviewers) try not to spend time talking about because it’s not the
band’s image that matters, it’s their music. But there’s no denying the fact
that Alyssa is one hell of a woman! But because this is a music review and not
a fashion critique, I decided to only spend a couple of sentences on Alyssa’s
looks before the review so that I don’t end up going on and on about her. The
Canadian melodic death band has achieved a reasonable amount of success with
the three albums that they’ve released and a considerably rigorous touring
schedule. Due to a seemingly constant loss of words whenever trying to review
this album, I haven’t been able to write one until now.
The part where I get stuck most often on reviews of albums
THIS good is where to fucking start! Although I will at least attempt to cover
every aspect of this album, I won’t be able to. And on another note, I will not
be organizing everything I say in order of how important I think they are.
Because although the amount of technicality these guys have in their music is
huge and certainly important, it’s not the biggest reason why I love them.
It’s not very often that you hear a melodic death band that
has THIS much technicality in their music. Although there are definitely plenty
of other bands that are this technical, the only other melodic death band that
I’M aware of are Wintersun, Children of Bodom, and Imperanon (I just noticed
that all three of those are Finnish). So for those of you that are HUGE fans of
melodic music and want something with a much more technical and complex song
structure, I would highly recommend this album. Every musician in this band is
playing with an extreme amount of complexity; and although that may be, none of
them are at the same level as the drummer. Although you can clearly hear his
complex drumming style, I think that it’s heard easiest in my favorite song off
the album, The Tempest [The Siren’s Song; the Banshees Cry], although I just
call it The Tempest for obvious reasons.
Whenever I’m telling people about REALLY good bassists in
the metal genre, the bassist from The Agonist is one that I always make it a
point to mention. If you’ve decided to go out and listen to The Tempest while
reading the rest of this review, you’ve already noticed that the bassist is a
prominent instrument on this album. If you haven’t chosen to do so, you’ll get
your first whiff of his colorful style in the intro of the damn song. Since
there’s only one guitarist, the bassist takes on the extra task of playing
complex harmonizations with the guitarist as well as providing the lower end
(as if the drummer doesn’t do enough of that!). Another thing that this band
does better than most melodic death bands is transitioning smoothly between
really heavy and really melodic parts. Once again, this can also be heard
easily in The Tempest. Most melodic death bands tend to stay melodic, and if
they make any mood transitions, they’re either slight (some more than others)
or gradual. There are some bands that decide to take on the challenge and play
two extremes of the same sound and putting them together in the same song.
Another band that does this VERY well is Scar Symmetry with their absolutely
crushing verse sections that transition PERFECTLY into the extremely epic and
melodic choruses.
The vocals are another thing that helps make the transition
not only smoother, but also more extreme. Her growls and screams are obviously
what make the heavy parts HEAVY (especially the breakdowns), and her singing
does none other than enhance the beauty of the flawless melodic elements. Also,
her vocals cover an unusually wide range of pitches and styles throughout the
entire record; from deepish growls to really nasty and gritty yells to
mid-ranged screams to screams as high as a canary. For me, nothing else needs
to be said about this album (although there are plenty of topics that I haven’t
covered). Anyone that is a fan of melodic metal and extreme metal in general
would thoroughly enjoy this melodic death masterpiece. I would rate this album
19/20.
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