The Agony Scene - The Darkest Red
Think you’ve heard all the twists metalcore has to offer as the increasingly-overstuffed genre kicks and screams its way skyward from the underbelly of the do-it-yourself network and into more mainstream outlets? Do you find yourself wondering if there’s anything left to contribute to the ‘New Wave Of American Heavy Metal’? Well, while the rest of the world was busy chewing all the flesh from the bones on the scream-sing scene’s cadaver, The Agony Scene decided to square themselves away in a deliverance-worthy environment, buckle down and reinvent the wheel.
Ok, let’s cut the crap and just talk about the music. The Darkest Red starts out with an intro which is, in my opinion, useless. It’s that intro that you’ve heard so many times before and that doesn’t bring any extra to the disc. Bummer! I would have loved to see another song on this disc instead. Why? Because these guys seem to be possessed by Mr. Devil himself. Music that seems to be driven by all the demons on this whole planet and Mike Williams screaming into his mic like he’s forced to scream out his lungs. Wow! What a power this band has! Incredible! Just incredible! Therefore I wouldn’t label this music as metalcore, but as dark metalcore, very dark metalcore.
And we’re not talking about dull melodic singing parts, or slow musical parts, hell no! We’re talking about a tempo that makes you move, whether you want it or not. While working myself through this review, I suddenly realize how well the title ‘The Darkest Red’ fits this CD. The combination of darkness and red is just perfect! The music breaths these words in and out.
And of course there’s The Agony Scene’s fist single (and video) of this album. They chose the song ‘Prey’ for it and although I love this song, it’s not completely relevant for the whole album. That’s because ‘Prey’ is exactly the one song of ‘The Darkest Red’ that has got a little bit of clean vocals in it, which of course isn’t bad, but it might affect the opinion of many of you out there. You might think of ‘again just one of those thousands metalcore bands out there’. Well, then please do me a favor and download the song ‘Scapegoat’ from www.roadrunnerrecords.nl/music. When you’ve listened to that song, then you can judge for yourself if this is your band or not.
All in all The Agony Scene is one of the better metalcore bands out there that actually managed to create a somewhat newer kind of metalcore. Dark! Honest! Moshing!
Mike Williams – Vocals
Brent Masters – Drums
Chris Emmons – Guitar
Steve Kaye – Guitar
Brian Hodges - Bass
01. Prelude
02. The Darkest Red
03. Scars Of Your Disease
04. Screams Turn To Silence
05. Sacrifice
06. Prey
07. Procession
08. Suffer
09. My Dark Desire
10. Scapegoat
11. Forever Abandoned
85/1001Details Roadrunner Records
Released on Tuesday Nov 30th, -0001
Dark Metalcore
Writer @Boek on Wednesday May 11th, 2005
Tags: #The Agony Scene
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