The Agonist – Eye of Providence

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The third AGONIST album Eye of Providence is due to release Tuesday, February 24, 2015. This melodic deathmetal band hailing from Montreal features their new lead singer, the lovely Vicky Psarakis who has quite an expressive voice.  She has range and control, and her voice is angelic when singing the melodic parts and demonic as the death metal voice.

Most tracks follow a similar sequence in composition which is: intro, melodic voice, death voice, melodic voice, death voice, double bass drums, crash cymbal, guitar solo, then repeat which can make the tracks almost run into each other. Lyrically, central themes are ancient civilizations, mythology and the new threat of big brother’s “all-seeing-eye” invading your privacy via the Internet and technology. 

The AGONIST has already released three singles as videos (See below to view videos) ‘Gates of Horn and Ivory’, ‘A Gentle Disease’, and ‘My Witness, Your Victim’.  The video to ‘My Witness, Your Victim’ is quite disturbing perhaps suggesting the precariousness in the justice system and how the violent always seem to prevail over due process.

‘Gates of Horn and Ivory’

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‘A Gentle Disease’

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‘My Witness, Your Victim’

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Another notable track is ‘Danse Macabre’ (French for ‘Dance of Death’) which since ancient folklore reminds us that in death we are all equal. ‘Faceless Messenger’ has a fantastically energetic intro with an equally robust composition.  The drummer shows his chops creating texture to various parts of the song by reinterpreting the beat with different configurations of toms, snare, single or double bass while always maintaining the tempo. Again the theme of ‘Faceless Messenger’ reflects the current communication breakdown due to technological “advances”.

 ‘A Gentle Disease’ is a soft acoustic ballad with an ambient yet melancholy guitar outro using a finger tapping technique with a delay. Unfortunately this outro has been cut from the video.  ‘Perpetual Notion’ starts out like a ballad followed by an unexpected punch of their metalcore sound. ‘Perpetual Notion’ again challenges their listeners to ask themselves: are you awake in this world or are you just a puppet?  

The AGONIST’s Eye of Providence is worth a listen or two or three. The best feature on this album hands down is the new female lead singer Vicky Psarakis as she pours emotion over the imaginative lyrics with her sensational voice.  Eye of Providence all in all gets a rating  3.5 skulls for its excellent overall arrangement and production, highly contagious energy, and the edgy issues in their lyrics.

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by Jen Rubino, RockRevolt Magazine Journalist