28 March 2024

The Agonist – Five

[schema type=”review” name=”The Agonist – Five” description=”Label: Napalm Records” author=”Juho Karila” pubdate=”2016-09-30″ ]

The Agonist is a Canadian, little bit less known, metalcore group and their fifth album is simply called Five. Judging by this release, calling them metalcore is an understatement and they clearly go beyond all genre lines while still drawing probably most influence from the aforementioned genre.

The album has a lot of variety and especially in Vicky Psarakis‘ vocals, which shift from clean pop to raspy punk to death growls to freeze your blood and gives the album its strenght. It’s not that the others don’t give their effort in making the album have its dynamics but the vocals are the most memorable aspect.

The statement is proved true by the first few songs, and of which, The Moment shows off all the cards the album has to offer by being one of the most progressive songs on Five. The whole song changes from speeding to a standstill in a matter of bars. Not all of the songs are that crooked, as The Chain represents more groovy and straightforward line of the band, which brings to mind the faster tracks of Devildriver but only without the hooking guitar melodies.

Leaving melodies to the minimum is probably a completely conscious choice as the Agonist gains their gravity from the dynamics play: vocals are delivered in a pretty confident pop-line and the melodies are given using same rules in making effort in catchiness, while the rest of the group stays in the rhythm section. The rest of the album is pretty much defined by those two first songs, apart from the two clear fillers: completely acoustic The Raven Eyes and the cinematic instrumental The Wake. The first of these only leaves us sleepy and the latter seems so out of the place, it makes me feel like wanting to skip every time.

After the (too) long break in the ass-kicking, comes in the heaviest song of the album, The Ressurrection, which offers a small change in the pace but fails to set the mood, due suffering from the most acute problem of the Canadians: lack of originality and the element of catchy.

While a small minor of the songs offers some pretty interesting sounding guitar leads and melodies, they’re lost under the plastic sounding drums and vocals, which is a major downer because you’ll miss them unless you pay close attention. Despite being just being a weak album that lacks almost everything that fascinates in prog and metalcore, I have to raise one song above the rest: The Hunt.

It’s one of more calmer and softer songs and it utilizes pretty shamelessly more pop elements than the others by having nicely kick and more straightforward guitar lines, backing up Vicky’s voice rather than trying to get more complicated; more like this and these guys might end up on my playlist.

I guess there’s an audience for this kind of music but I fail to see it.

Line-up:
Danny Marino – guitars
Chris Kells – bass, backing vocals
Simon McKay – drums, percussions
Pascal “Paco” Jobin – guitars
Vicky Psarakis – lead vocals

Tracklist:
1. The Moment
2. The Chain
3. The Anchor and The Sail
4. The Game
5. The Ocean
6. The Hunt
7. The Raven Eyes
8. The Wake
9. The Resurrection
10. The Villain
11. The Pursuit of Emptiness
12. The Man Who Fell to Earth
13. The Trial
14. Take Me to Church (Hozier Cover) (Bonus Track)

Links:

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