FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE - Agony
August 10, 2011, 13 years ago
(Nuclear Blast)
Italy's FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE has been impressing since its fantastic, on-fire '09 debut Oracles, the group proving to the world that Italy's scene runs deeper and more brutal than Fleshgod's rhapsodic countrymen. Oracles' wound-inflicting evidently sliced hard enough to warrant a deal with metal institution Nuclear Blast, and Fleshgod Apocalypse has not disappointed on its Nuclear Blast debut, Agony. Though venturing out of the BEHEMOTH worship of previous efforts, Fleshgod Apocalypse is still able to communicate its vision effectively and viciously, the group's brand of technical death representative of the subgenre at its compositional peak. Further differentiating Agony from the rest of the Fleshgod catalogue is this record's unique incorporation of symphonic elements, the album playing with DIMMU BORGIR's orchestral flare under Fleshgod's ultra-precise death metal: as the symphony has been appropriated by false bands ludicrously claiming allegiance to black metal while not fulfilling any of its criteria, it's sort of surreal to hear death metal's immersion in the symphony, the whole exercise a postmodern take on disarming expectations in metal contexts. Which is quite exciting, in an age where metal's over-saturation has produced too many bands doing too many of the same things, year in and year out.
