Agathocles, while he was a tyrant, loved to Violently Gorge

 

Violent Gorge is back on track with another split EP with a very good band, this time with Belgian mincecore legends Agathocles. Violent Gorge is a side project of some members of Archagathus and, even if they’re not sharing the cult status their “mother” band is gaining, Violent Gorge is slowly climbing up the grindcore cliff with a bunch of very good releases. I’ve really enjoyed their split EP with Dispepsiaa and, at least sounds-wise, this new 7″ follows the path traced by its predecessor. On the Canadian side are featured six songs of an old school blending mix of grindcore, goregrind and proto-death metal. The structures are strongly fitting the grindcore attributes, with droning fast riffs, groovy drumming and pace setting bass tones. Vocals are way more in a goregrind/death metal fashion, sticking to a deep guttural growl, almost leaning to pig squealing. There is a huge feedback/echo effect applied to these songs, enhanching the old school feeling, making it sound like it’s from 91 and recorded for the eleventh time on a crappy C-60 TDK tape. This way of “producing” is already a classic in Violent Gorge releases, so long time fans won’t be surprised by that, since this is surely a good addition to their songwriting. Let’s talk about songwriting…Well, I have to admit that I liked the split with Dispepsiaa way more than this one, mostly because the songs were composed in a stronger fashion, managing to trasmit a lot more energy to the listeners. While there is no particular flaw and everything stands in the right place, this songs miss the involvment factor, flowing in the background without hitting your weak spots. I don’t know from which sessions these recording was made, but I think this is a small step back in the Violent Gorge journey to the grindcore history. This is a quite enjoyable records with a good approach to grindcore and a great choice of sounds, but it lacks of depth and I think these songs would fit better in a wider environment, like along some others on a full lenght album or a maxi single…

 

 

Ok, it’s Agathocles time. I think you can’t let go one month without buying a new AGx record, am I wrong? I used to don’t like Grind Is Protest, since I think that album lacked of consistency and well, balls. After some times I can come out with a more thought judgement, the songs of Grind Is Protest weren’t bad, they just were in the wrong release. A lot of those tunes were used in short running time EPs and I think they worked WAY better on that format instead a full lenght album (the exact opposite of the Violent Gorge songs on the other side ehehe). On this EP there’s only one song from that album (Too Fast) but all of them come from the same period and with the same line up (Nils-Jan-Tony) so the approach was the same. What you’re gonna find here is a bunch of songs in the classic fast mincecore Agathocles way : full throttle guitar riffs, strong crusty bass tones, hammering drums, barking & screaming vocals all wrapped in fuzziest enevelop of them all. I don’t think any of these songs will have a strong and durable place in the band’s history but they do their goddamn job in a perfect way. Agathocles is a band that incarnates the ideal of : it doesn’t matter if you’re gonna change the world with your music, what matters is that you kick as many asses as possible. And, believe me, a lot of asses will be kicked. This side of the split EP is a fuzzy fastfest of classic grindcore riffs, smashing fashion victims, modern grindcore bands and everyone who thinks extreme music belongs to posh clubs. So, there is no particular news on this one, but I want to point out a particular song : Numbers. This song was already released on some recent records, but I think it keeps strong the spirit of some 90’s Agathocles classics, like A For Arrogance, with its almost mid-paced rhytmn and brings some different sounds with some very cool clean guitar parts. There’s only the come back of the spoken words intro, like in classics like Sheep, Like An Ivy, Poem. Overall this is a very good side, I strongly reccomend to give it a spin!

 

Co-released by To Live A Lie, Don’t Fear The Night and Zombie Fetus.

~ by petetheripper on March 24, 2011.