Review Summary: A debut so earth-shattering that the band need an exclamation mark.
Whenever a band has some form of punctuation mark in their name, it puts me off a little. Perhaps monstrosities like 'Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!' are to blame for that. A band that I cannot recommend you avoid enough. With that in mind, when I heard that a group called 'Aghast!' from London had put out an album with comic book style artwork, I couldn't be less interested. However, I like to think that I'm fairly open-minded about music, so I gave them a go. After all they did form at a drinking competition at a festival in Germany. That's pretty metal. It didn't take me long to think that perhaps I'll need to have second thoughts about bands with punctuation marks in their name...
One of the first things I noticed about this album was the production. Right from when the introduction, 'Die Laughing', finishes and the title track boots off this thing sounds incredibly crisp. A lot of heavier albums, particularly debut ones, fall short on the production side of things, but not on this occasion. What about the music though? Well if you like the sound of grindcore mixed with death metal but with the tempo of thrash metal, then this record is going to be right up your street.
It all starts in catchy fashion with tracks 'All the Rage' and 'Hollywood Ending', followed by a melodic section with clean singing on 'Afterlife Crisis'. Don't let that fool you though. This is a brutal album. Songs like 'Look Alive!' (more exclamation marks!) and 'We Fear Silence' see to that by bringing pure heaviness to the table, while 'Drop Dead Famous' lets the band show more of a deathcore influence. The good kind of deathcore though, not 'Chelsea Grin'. Just when you think that perhaps the songs are starting to blend into one another, it all comes to a close in chaotic fashion with 'Noise Pollution'. What we're left with then is an undoubtedly heavy, but fun in places, debut album. It's catchy but well written in all the right areas. There's even a terrific breakdown on 'Look Alive!', something more bands could do with mastering...to put it lightly.
Something worth pointing out though is that it's taken the band eight years to put this out. Let's hope then that they're in it for the long run and not just putting out an album for the sake of it, because this is brilliant, and well worthy of an exclamation mark!
