| Discord Channel info |
| |
| Come Join Us |
|
| Torrent's details |
|
| Agathocles - 2010 - This Is Not A Threat, It s A Promise |
| Agathocles - 2010 - This Is Not A Threat, It s A Promise |
Grindcore from Belgium, latest full-length album released in 2010.
In their twenty-five-year existence, Belgian grind act Agathocles has amassed a truly staggering release catalog—their Metal Archives entry lists more than 200 titles, from demos to LPs to copious split releases to compilations of those copious splits. That’s an average of over eight records per year, in case you don’t want to do the math. Founding and only constant Agathocles member Jan Frederickx (often referred to under the nom de grind “Jan AG”) has coined the term “mincecore” to describe the band’s take on grindcore—simple riffs, gnarly and distorted bass, sociopolitical lyrics, dual high-and-low screamed vocals, prominent d-beat / noise / crust influences, raw (sometimes unlistenable) production, more-than-slight sloppiness in the playing… Agathocles’ mission statement is pretty much to keep grindcore steady in its simplest, rawest form. The problem with that is that the results aren’t always…well…terribly good.
So those familiar with the traditional mincecore sound will know exactly what to expect from This Is Not A Threat, although Agathocles does throw one twist into the mix— “God Save The Real Green Crocodile” incorporates upbeat rhythms and brief reggae clean vocals. As expected, most of This is true to the band’s ethos; it’s the same fuzzed-out, simplistic grinding that Agathocles has been peddling for a quarter of a century. Although by Agathocles standards This is Bob-Rock-meets-Brendan-O’Brien polished, the production is a mixed bag still, with a tinny ratatat snare drum (boo!) and thick wall-of-fuzz guitars and bass that are still sharper and less fuzzed than many earlier efforts (a small hurrah!). Per usual, Jan’s vocals are mostly a deep guttural, but he deviates into the occasional chattering higher turn or hardcore bark to add some limited variety. The songs range from a few 3-minute near-epics (“Aside,” the unexpectedly melodic “Crocodile,” the midtempo “Motherfucker”, all three among the best on hand) to many more short bursts of noise-indebted grind—no surprises there, either…
I’m by no means well versed in all of Agathocles’ releases—with eight or more per year, who but Jan AG himself could be? But I’ve got two of the four Mince Core History compilations and a few other scattered offerings, and I’ve heard enough to know that there’s better Agathocles and there’s far, far worse. Mostly, their catalog is overwhelming, and yet strangely it’s not because, even as there’s a ridiculous amount of it, it’s interchangeable and internally redundant. My most recent attempt to wade in was 2006’s Mincer, a disc I found to be mildly enjoyable but mostly uninspiring, and This follows suit.
Four hundred words later, this review can be summed up in five more: This is an Agathocles record. It sports a few decent “mincing” tracks (“More Patches Than Brains,” “Black Tea,” those listed above) amongst stretches of redundancy (everything else). This Is Not A Threat may be on the better side of the Agathocles quality spectrum, but it’s still one-dimensional, repetitive, basic, and as such, it’s true to Agathocles’ form. Even as a dedicated fan of most things grinding, all but the highest highs of this band’s unadventurous, often under-produced canon wears on me after a short while (sometimes a very short while)—largely, it’s the equivalent of some basement-level necro-kvlt black metal project, but with shorter songs and less pagan trollery. Still, 200-plus records later, somebody somewhere must like this one trick, so I suppose, when it comes to This, those fans will be content but not ecstatic; the curious (indeed, all but the rabid) should approach with reservations.
Agathocles Official Website
Agathocles is a Grindcore band from Belgium, and one of the more well known acts in the Grindcore world. The acknowledgement of this band is not necessarily over the quality of the material they release, but moreso about the sheer magnitude of material they have put out since forming back in 1985. Of course, the band plays some brutal Grindcore that one can only call filthy and along the lines of early Carcass, and with their latest full-length effort, This is Not a Threat, It's a Promise, the band shows their Grindcore skills once again, as well as that they still haven't really run out of ideas.
The tracks that make up This is Not a Threat, It's a Promise follow a basic Grindcore rule. For the most part, the music is often played at a fast pace, and plenty of the tracks utilize blast beats to make it worth while. The vocals range from being odd-sounding shouting that sounds like gang chanting by one person who is constipated, such as in the first track, "Black Tea", as well as on some others through the release like "People's Property. The band also adds some gurgling gutteral vocals that take some of the material into the whole Goregrind world, which make up a good chunk of the vocals on this recording. Next to all that, the production seem muddy and a little more raw then today's clearer recordings, which helps the album out with the overall atmosphere of being a very heavy and goresoak Grind release that a fan may have expected to hear back in the eighties.
One of the big perks of this release is the varying music styles. While there are blistering Grindcore tracks on here such as "Black Tea" and "Houses of Fraud" which start the album off with a great kick, Agathocles also manages to bring together some slower material. "People's Property", for one, is a much slower paced track which utilizes the gurgling gutteral vocal style nicely to create a track that is a little longer then many other songs, but sounds a little more crushing then others. Then there are the tracks that mix up the speed and crushing slower pace, such as "Gaszilla", which also incorporates some chords that will remind listeners of acts that nicely blended Death Metal into the mix, such as Napalm Death, or even later acts like Cretin. Of course, this vocal approach also appears in some of the more Punk oriented Grindcore on the release, like the track "God Save the Real Green Crocodile", which has a more upbeat Punk feel to it, as well as a moment where the music slows down and feels a little Carribean before tearing back into the Punk-fused grinding.
This is Not a Threat, It's a Promise is yet another enjoyable release from Agathocles, which is a little shocking considering the amount of releases already available from this band. Either way, there's a great amount of variety in the songs presented here, which kills off a good deal of the typical blast beat repetition that many of today's Grindcore bands feel happens to be the only thing needed to drive an album. While not all the material on this effort is as solid as the next track, and there's nothing too new about it, the performances on this recording are still pretty strong and energetic, giving an effort that fans of Grindcore will be quite pleased with until the next Agathocles release hits to push this one aside before it even has the chance to settle.
Enjoy/seed/support RockBox! |
| Grindcore |
| 320 k |
| 72.48 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/01- Black Tea.mp3 |
1.55 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/02- Houses Of Fraud.mp3 |
1.01 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/03- Straight Lane.mp3 |
2.14 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/04- Bits And Chips.mp3 |
3.85 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/05- Reduce The Pain, Refuse The Gain.mp3 |
888.07 KB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/06- People's Property.mp3 |
3.79 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/07- Gaszilla.mp3 |
7.13 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/08- Soap And Joke.mp3 |
2.16 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/09- Hyvää Paivää.mp3 |
3.54 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/10- Financial Cris-Ass.mp3 |
1.56 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/11- Motherfucker (Swing That Axe).mp3 |
6.53 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/12- Go With A Blow.mp3 |
715.61 KB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/13- Monkey Business.mp3 |
1.51 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/14- Troops Of Rhumania.mp3 |
1.50 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/15- Cut Off.mp3 |
512.54 KB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/16- God Save The Real Green Crocodile.mp3 |
6.73 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/17- Fangs Feasting On Funds.mp3 |
1.02 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/18- Cleptocracy.mp3 |
1.29 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/19- De Kiezer Heeft Nooit Gelijk.mp3 |
763.58 KB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/20- Aside.mp3 |
8.52 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/21- Ulkopuolinen.mp3 |
1.01 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/22- Stuck@Dumb.Com.mp3 |
3.41 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/23- More Patches Than Brains.mp3 |
3.40 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/24- Gallows Eve.mp3 |
772.75 KB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/25- After The Battle.mp3 |
5.19 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/26- Will Gone, Lobotomy Done.mp3 |
1.01 MB |
| 2010 This Is Not A Threat, It's A Promise/27- Manipulotiek.mp3 |
1.06 MB |
27 files
|
| 21/01/2011 |
| Seed(s): 0, Leecher(s): 1 = 1 Peer(s) |
| 18/02/2017 22:51:34 |
Back
| |
|
|
|
/ XBTT (1) by Dejavu