Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 07:51 PM by Giorgos Tsekas
Genre:Epic Black/Doom Metal
Country: Hellas
Label:Venerate Industries
Year: 2021
It’s hard to run a website but its hell easier than to run a magazine. It’s easy to write a review about a band you don’t know its members or about a one you are a fan, but it’s damn hard as fuck to write even a few words about a band that its members are really close to you. As I don’t feel like a music journalist; I guess Tsekas, Elpida or Papadakis can use this term for their work here. Most music journalists though unfortunately just to want to please the labels or the bands or act like being official worshippers or public relations managers. Despite the fact I don’t call myself a music journalist as I’m more a Heavy Metal fanatic, yet I don’t pull any punches to anyone.
Agnes Vein may seem to most of you that they flow slow, as their previous album came 8 years before (the tremendous “Soulship”) and their debut “Duality” was out in 2010; 11 years ago, but I think this isn’t the reason why the release albums with long intervals. For me it’s obvious that the guys speak only when they have something to say. And here in their 3rd studio full length effort entitled “Deathcall” Agnes Vein say so much in only 6 (long) songs. They deliver an almost flawless Blackened Doom gem without losing their identity or trying to shake down their principles. They still are slow, heavy and bleak. At the same time they sound monolithic, stubborn and old school while they blend so many elements from sludge, doom and black metal all in a post aspect and a fresh look. The use of clean vocals and extreme ones corresponds with the duality of their nature; extreme vocals doesn’t mean just a bunch of growls here and there or a plethora of guttural just for the sake of it…Agnes Vein are fearsome as they know what they do and they do it with a surgical precision. They are ambitious but having their feet on the ground helps them having emulous compositions, with consecutive rhythm alternations, commanding vocal lines, sharing generously primordial feelings, mournful riffs and epic atmosphere, thick bass lines and unpredictable rhythm section without being overreacting.
What a great album from the Hellenic trio that doesn’t hide its influences; Bathory, Ved Buens Ende, Primordial, Pentagram, Celtic Frost…Don’t make the mistake to surpass “Deathcall”… Anthems like “Vultures Hymn (Praise Bounteous)” and “Sovereign Star” just can’t be written every day…
