Agonal, according to their Facebook page is the brain child
of one Jon Francis. This release the third in a trilogy is entitled A Suffering
Complete. A Suffering Complete is a solid album musically with elements of
symphonic doom mixed in with extreme and clean vocals, along with a healthy
dose of melody.
Even though
there is keyboard for those symphonic elements, the guitars carry the freight. No, you won’t find many guitar solos, but the
layering of musical elements was done well enough that I never wondered when a
solo break was coming. I was pleasantly surprised to hear a very upfront and loud six string rythym section, well recorded and quite defined.
This release, at times, is very reminiscent of My Silent
Wake. Not quite as melancholy where MSW uses more reverb for atmopherics and other acoustic instruments, Agonal relies soully upon their songwriting. There are some good solid dynamics that
are apparent within many of the songs, Fall Unto
Me for example. However there are plenty of just hard hitting tracks such as
The Final Sunset.
The sound quality is quite good and just in passing I
originally thought this was a complete band. I had no idea it was a one man
band, with a few guest musicians. If I
hadn’t looked it up I wouldn’t have guessed that the drums were programmed, I’m
usually pretty good at picking them out but not this time.
Agonal, A Suffering Complete is bombastic and heavy which
for a symphonic doom release is just what the doctor ordered. Grab a copy of this through Sanctus Gladius
and ride the crushing hammer of doom!!
7 axes
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