{"id":23916,"date":"2015-02-12T00:01:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T00:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=23916"},"modified":"2016-05-04T15:14:59","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T15:14:59","slug":"album-review-the-agonist-eye-of-providence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-the-agonist-eye-of-providence\/","title":{"rendered":"THE AGONIST – Eye Of Providence (2015) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE AGONIST
Eye Of Providence<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nCentury Media (2015)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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After a decade in the metal scene, Montreal\u2019s The Agonist is no stranger to fans of aggressive music. In case you have been \u201cfinding yourself\u201d on a mountain retreat for the last year or so, the band got a lot of press in 2014 when former vocalist Alissa White-Gluz split to front labelmates Arch Enemy.<\/p>\n

Accepting the challenge, the members vowed to carry on, promptly enlisting new vocalist Vicky Psarakis and returning to the studio. The result is Eye Of Providence<\/em>, the band\u2019s fourth and most diverse album to date.<\/p>\n

The Agonist, rightfully so, take this album on as if their career depends on it. All guns are blazing on a number of songs here. The band deliver the heavy, metalcore sound we are used to on songs like \u2018Architects Hallucinate\u2019, where the music stomps and grooves and stutters behind Psarakis\u2019 scratchy throated growl and soaring clean vocals, and \u2018I Endeavor\u2019, a melodic death metal ode that has a progressive guitar work which will win you over when the vocals can\u2019t carry it.<\/p>\n

The opening shotgun blast, \u2018Gates Of Horn And Ivory\u2019 set the stage for those songs with thick guitars and growling vocals littered with clean vocal parts. The clean vocals are fun to sing along with but undeniably take away from the overall crush of the music. <\/p>\n

Another bullet that The Agonist fully load this time around is the hook. While the band has always flirted with being a little more accessible, they embrace it this time. \u2018My Witness, Your Victim\u2019 has a melodic bounce and a lot of fist pumping groove as well as the now standard beauty and the beast vocals. \u2018Disconnect Me\u2019 is largely the same, using the themes of loneliness and desperation to inspire self-reliance and confidence over a backdrop of anthemic choruses and crushing verses.<\/p>\n

The band even stalk their progressive inner beast as well on the eight-minute epic \u2018As Above, So Below\u2019, relying almost entirely on clean vocals and straightforward guitar tones. While not nearly as heavy as the rest of the record, The Agonist make up for it with a lot of energy that satisfies the curiosity of what the band might sound like if they were just a rock band. <\/p>\n

There will certainly be a significant portion of the metal community that cry \u201cSell-out!\u201d<\/em> at the top of their lungs when they hear this album. But, that lame cry is expected when a singer switch (especially from a well-liked vocalist) happens, so diehards won\u2019t give it much credence. Fortunately, Psarakis is the real deal and will quickly transcend your expectation. This is easily the band\u2019s musically strongest and most interesting album since 2007 debut Once Only Imagined<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE AGONISTEye Of Providence Century Media (2015)Rating: 8\/10 After a decade in the metal scene, Montreal\u2019s The Agonist is no stranger to fans of aggressive music. In case you have been \u201cfinding yourself\u201d on a mountain retreat for the last year or so, the band got a lot of press in 2014 when former vocalist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,300],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-the-agonist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23916"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23919,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23916\/revisions\/23919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}