The Agony Scene - The Agony Scene

*=Staff's pick	We Bury Our Dead At Dawn* Habeas Corpus* Judas Lines Of Sacrifice Eyes Sewn Shut Nausea Shotgun Wedding Vivid Paint It Black* The Damned

Genre	Death Metal	Michael Williams	Vocals
Tracks	10	Johnny Lloyd	Guitar
Runningtime	36 Min.	Christopher Emmons	Guitar
Label	Century Media	Matthew Shannon	Bass
Release	29 Sept. 2003	Brent Masters	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	In Flames, Dark Tranquillity

American death metal with a Gothenburg metal sound, that is basically what The Agony Scene is about.
You can hear the sources of inspiration from their national inheritance with bands like Slayer and Morbid Angel but is it the European death metal that seems to be the biggest inspiration and by listening I find similarities with many Swedish bands, but it is Dark Tranquillity and In Flames that comes through most apparent, and that is from those albums they did before the use of keyboards.

On their selftitled debut it is full-force head-on death metal directly from the start and without compromise they manages to keep this up through the entire somewhat short album with only 36 minutes of runningtime. The album opens up with the two songs that are those that are the best on the album making it almost unnecessary to listen to the rest if hadn't been for the cover track Paint It Black. Vocalist Michael Williams sings with a growling voice that sounds almost evil and these guys must be really pissed of at something because the anger shines through at all times and takes the overhand a bit too much. This anger makes the songs suffer, the songwriting could have used some more work with more melodies, many of the track feels like they are only half-done.

My biggest problem with the album is that none of the songs seems to stick with me, they all are good or at least ok, but should have needed some more ingredients in order to be better, more varied with more guitarsolos. The guitarplaying besides the lack of great solos leaves really nothing to complain about, it hold some really nice guitarlines that follows the music just like you can hear from Dark Tranquillity, if the tracks had been longer I think it might have been easier for me to take them in.

However short the album might be it leaves me wanting more, unfortunately it doesn't leave me wanting more of The Agony Scene. Instead it pulls me towards my record shelf and the letter D where I can pick out an album with Dark Tranquillity whose music feels more complete

I must admit that I, not a big fan of Rolling Stones but cannot ignore the fact that they have done some seriously great songs that can be seen as classics, Paint It Black is one of those. I thought that Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton had done the ultimate cover version of that song on his solo-album Baptizm Of Fire (1997), but once again I'm proved wrong. The Agony Scene's melodic death metal version of it is top-notch, it's a killer. Only to find it a bit disappointing that the best track on the album is a cover.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	6	5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Thomas