ALBUM REVIEW: Agonist – As The World Dies
If an agonist is a substance which sets off a psychological response when combined with a receptor, then the debut album from death metal supergroup AS THE WORLD DIES has the desired effect. Agonist is a punishing series of trials that push you to your physical and psychological limit, throwing you headfirst into the depths of hell, just like BOLT THROWER and GRAVE before them.
At times, Agonist feels like a fever dream of five death metal disciples worshipping at the altar of OSDM. You can’t crucify them for their convictions, with AS THE WORLD DIES counting members of MEMORIAM and PEMPHIGOID among its ranks, and a revolving cast of death metal deities including Karl Willetts (BOLT THROWER/MEMORIAM), Kam Lee (DEATH/MASSACRE), and Dave Ingram (BOLT THROWER/BENEDICTION). If anything, you’d be appalled if you didn’t feel inspired to dig out your vinyl and dust off your OSDM collection.
Experiencing Agonist from start to finish is a lot like cooking up a big bowl of porridge. Opening duo Annulment and Desolate are slow-burners, simmering away softly to seek out the flavours, bubbling up on brutal beasts Red Death and The Tempest, and bringing itself to the boil as you’ve hit the perfect bowl of porridge on Thin Out The Herd and As The World Dies. In short, AS THE WORLD DIES have put together an album that at first feels tiresome, a true testament to the been there, done that, got the t-shirt generation, before breaking off into uncharted territory, becoming a beast of its own entirely.
When AS THE WORLD DIES stay in their lane and stick to their OSDM-guns, they trap themselves under the weight of expectation. They just about miss the mark in these moments, grinding through the gears rather than speeding past the competition. For example, Desolate dishes out round-for-round ground-and-pound, as rolling death-thrash riffs that channel GRAVE go toe-to-toe with the unforgiving, industrial cold of classic BOLT THROWER cuts, whilst Dawn Of Terror takes too much time messing about with audio clips, feedback loops, and grandiosity before it serves up a chunky slice of OSDM for dinner, albeit too little too late.
AS THE WORLD DIES show the sheer quality of the band behind Agonist when they choose to chop up their influences and boil them up in a cauldron of chaotic combinations. Thin Out The Herd’s atmospheric intro is as eerie as it gets, as running water and pounding footsteps haunt your eardrums before everything’s eclipsed by an all-out OSDM-assault that encourages you to cause carnage to anything in your immediate vicinity.
Elsewhere, Day Of Reckoning delivers death-and-roll destruction in space, as its blast beats goes toe-to-toe with futuristic synths before descending into a death-thrash wormhole of chaos that feels like you’re on a bender in the depths of hell with KREATOR, before throwing you in and out of its own mosh pit like KVERLETAK on acid. Meanwhile, Red Death lulls you into a false sense of security with a power riff that feels like you’re saluting the flag of a fighter plane flying past, before it dives nose first into the depths of a death-doom hellscape, as if DEATH gave up on technical death metal in favour of writing funeral dirges that cave your skull in. These experiments in pushing the limits of death metal, whilst still worshipping its history, are by far Agonist’s best moments.
On Agonist, AS THE WORLD DIES offer up a debut that delights as much as it disappoints. For every track that feels like you’re trundling through the annals of death metal history, there’s a track that feels like it’s teaching old dogs new tricks, breaking ground in a genre that often feels stuck in its ways. Whether you’re on board with OSDM-worshipping or not, Agonist is an album you’ve got to dive into.
Rating: 7/10
Agonist is set for release on March 25th via Transcending Obscurity Records.
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