Roadrunner "The Darkest Red" - The Agony Scene

The Agony Scene

The Darkest Red

Artist: The Agony Scene
Release Date: May 24, 2005

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The Agony Scene has emerged with a sharpened musical battle-axe called The Darkest Red, an album poised to crack the contents of each and every spectator's skull all over the floor. 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 of 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. The Darkest Red fuses crusty-punk dissonance, crushingly brutal breakdowns, European metallic-harmony, a bit of melodic singing and pulverizing rhythms like never before. It all comes together to form a sonic brew that could not have been birthed anywhere other than the middle of nowhere.

1. Prelude
2. The Darkest Red
3. Scars of Your Disease
4. Screams Turn To Silence
5. Sacrifice
6. Prey
7. Procession
8. Suffer
9. My Dark Desire
10. Scapegoat
11. Forever Abandoned

Trivium

Mutiny Within

Killswitch Engage

Hatebreed

Chimaira

10.31.2008 Mike Gitter wrote...

Nice enough guys. Still. the juju that enshrouded this Tulsa terror squad was just plain dark and just plain fucked. We're talking about poor dudes from a place with a church on every corner and more than its share of meth labs a couple miles out of town.
Think Slipknot without the masks. Not a pretty sound -- or sight.
The Agony Scene released its first self-titled album (produced by KsE's Adam Dutkieicz) on the good Christian Solid State label only to get their asses kicked off once the label realized the Ags' true nature. Oh, there were rumors...so onto the much more "tolerant" Roadrunner they went.
"The Darkest Red" is a violent, riffy and evil slice of metal. Think Samhain on steroids topped with a scream from one Michael Williams (not to be confused with the dude from Eyehategod) that's as gnarly as anyone out there. Think Randy Blythe on battery acid. And yeah, when Mikey breaks into croon it's with an Ozzy-ish anguish.
Have you seen the video for the track "Prey"? It's a stomach-wrench as the gruesome fivesome provide soundtrack to a gnarly vignette of abuse and deterioration. Take a listen to "Scapegoat" -- an exercise in wanton dance floor brutality. Chock up those emotional and musical exorcisms to producer Rob Caggiano, the man who made some of the finest Cradle of Filth albums and is currently consorting with members of Gorgoroth in a new band as well as grinding guitars with some band called Anthrax.
In classic Agony Scene tradition, they lasted one record on Roadrunner. Basic story. Bad behavior. Not so spectacular sales. They then went onto make one more record for Century Media before grinding to their own demise. That next album had nowhere near the level of anger and madness that permeated "The Darkest Red".
Then again, this was a hard one to live up to.

Edited by: Mike Gitter on 11/15/2008 @ 7:29 AM

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