Agonized – Gods…

agonized-gods

Agonized will violently sodomize the inner core of your fragile soul. – Sarjoo Devani/Explicitly Intense

Not every band from the frozen north aimed for melodic and energetic interpretations of death metal; many, like fellow Finns Belial or the Swedes in Obscurity, chose instead to write grinding cudgels of primitive bass noise that sounded like a winter avalanche of the soul overtaking all hope. Agonized created a six-song demo in this vein and sadly were lost to time after that point.

Gods… resembles a Scandinavian version of the ultra-primitive death metal of Morpheus Descends in that songs start with simple motifs, often two notes shaped into a compelling rhythm, and then ride that pattern through textural changes such as alternating tremolo/single-picked, tempo doubling, and layers of vocals. This pattern is then confronted with an oppositional pattern which is extremely similar, causing a kind of crossover which tends to find itself in a third pattern which is a mid-paced melodic overview of the previous two. It creates a result that must be like rising from the frozen wastes to walk along mountain ridges.

Perhaps most famous for its title track, which includes a distinctive riff shared between Agonized and Beherit (on both Engram‘s “Axiom Heroine” and Drawing Down the Moon‘s “Thou Angel of the Gods”), Gods… evokes the raw purpose of the death metal and black metal underground. This was not political music; it was a rejection of what civilization had become in its reliance on friendly, happy, positive, “human” values. Thus it turned toward the inhuman. These churning dark riffs and gurgling demonic growls convey the point aesthetically that the days of enlightenment have failed us, and darkness has come again, rising from below to destroy all who were fooled by the false light.

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10 thoughts on “Agonized – Gods…

  1. Gutterboy says:

    Just a comment to the staff.
    What’s up with the bands reviewed on the Sadisitic Reviews section?
    Who cares about those bands?
    I propose you consider reviewing the later albums of bands that have previously appeared on the DLA , Heidenlärm, Oratio of Disorder instead of the newer nu-metalcore bans.
    For instance:
    Kult of Azazel
    Unleashed
    Tartaros
    Obtained Enslavement
    Pessimist
    Pavor
    Horna

    1. All in good time. Right now we view it as important to catch up on current bands and express a voice on what’s currently happening in metal.

      1. tiny midget says:

        ok brett. but hurry.
        u made it clear that metal ended in ´96.
        i believed u.
        by 2014 u made it clear metal turned into metalcore. and sucked.
        again, i believed u.
        five different reviews of hvis lysset tar oss is worth 26.7 reviews of the latest current metalcore band of the week u consider important to make it clear by the end or your review it’s really not important after all. wtf?
        just like a new pressing of plato’s the republic is worth 1000 current books of philosophy.
        are you also getting current on that too?

        1. The more substantive reviews of older material are obviously more fun and interesting to write than bashing of the modern, but I also feel like there’s ground we must reclaim here. Metal shouldn’t be given up to the mediocre herd too easily. I intend to flesh out the classic archives however. The Agonized review is in part a nod to that.

          1. Count Ringworm says:

            “I intend to flesh out the classic archives however.”

            Then how about a proper entry for Assück already… Your colleague has articulated their case quite well.

      2. Gareth Bale says:

        Unleashed and Kult ov Azazel are current. Released albums in 2012.

      3. Roger Water's Unwashed Dildo says:

        Well, you have a wealth of source material from sites like metalsucks.

  2. EDS says:

    Agonized is third tier Finn death. Move along….

  3. Sounds similar to the 1991 rehearsal from Demilich. If you haven’t heard that, go to anentity.com and download for free.

  4. 160500 says:

    These new underground bands (Cóndor, War Master, etc…) are acting like an advanced war tactic of hiding, from music commercialization: they avoid music for hear, they seek music for think. While people in the surface think bands like Dimmu Borgir or Cradle Of Filth are heavy, profound and original, in the depths are much more art than these heavy pop bands.

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