Artist: Agathocles
Country: Belgium
Label: Displeased Records
Formats: CD
Year: 2007
Agathocles is probably most known for its huge amount of releases, and holds the record alongside acts as Nunslaughter, Unholy Grave, Sabbat. Though Agathocles’ primitive sound is easy to recognize this album, originally released in 1991, is pretty different. Agathocles was clearly influenced by the ongoing doom/death metal scene back in these days. That resulted in a very dark and doomy sound, old school as ever, but with a more downtuned guitar sound and a clear death metal intent, even including some real moshparts (listen to “Four Walls” for instance!).
I do own the original album on CD as well, which is actually more interesting than this re-release. This re-release has different artwork, which is promoted as being ‘renewed and improved artwork’, but basically is nothing really better – on the contrary. But well, the original release has 29 tracks, the 9 album tracks plus the tracks from the splits with Smegma, Riek Boois (the first Agathocles release ever), Blood and VNA and two full 7”es “Is This Cruel?” and “Fascination Of Mutilation”, which is definitely more interesting than the ten live tracks from 1990 that are put on this re-release.
Still, this is very much worth the attention of every grind/death metal fan, as this is a massively overlooked Agathocles album, mostly seen as their debut album. So, if you have missed this the first round or wasn’t able to pick it up earlier this might be the moment. Great and essential stuff.
