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The Agonist - Lullabies For The Dormant Mind

posted by: Bayonetwork on 29 May 2009

Century Media

The graphic style that Tim Burton displayed in The Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride has a great attraction towards girls. When I saw the cover for Lullabies For The Dormant Mind it made me think of the aforementioned movies and I immediately thought that this band had to be fronted by a women. Guess what, I was right.

I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but I got sceptic when I noticed the band pictures. They have this cyber-gothic meets vampire style going on. Purple hair, high hats, medieval clothing. On the other hand, this Canadian band already toured with The Haunted and Merauder, so they had to be doing something right. The first song on the album The Tempest definitely kicks in at high speed. Pounding double bass drum and low tuned chugging metal guitars. But what really catches your attention is the flexibility of singer Alissa White-Gluz her voice. Ranging from deep grunts over screams to high pitched vocals. She created some great vocal lines as well. The screams have a lot of flow in them and the melodic lines add the more mellow elements. Only minor in her flexibility is their urge to show her possibilities all at the same time. When you get five different types of voices at the same time, it just creates a horrible cacaphony.

The music The Agonist plays is probably even more flexible that their vocalist's voice. They integrate a lot of extreme styles of metal, in a way similar to Bleeding Through and All That Remains. The emphasis on the modern metal(core), but with a lot of room for more traditional black and death metal. There really isn't anything to really complain about. The songs are great, the technical skills are undoubtably high and there's a lot of variation. But still this won't be an album that I'll remember for a long time. The Agonist tangles a thin line between genius and just plain pastiche. After so many listens, I still don't know which side I'm on.

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Related bandprofile: The Agonist