Review Summary: An unexpected comeback, done right.
Unexpected comebacks seem to be an ongoing trend this year. Underoath had
Erase Me, A Perfect Circle had
Eat the Elephant, Hopesfall had
Arbiter, Bleeding Through had
Love Will Kill All, and
Tormentor is The Agony Scene’s comeback after a decade of silence. The Agony Scene were, for all intents and purposes, just another fish in the sea of 2000’s metalcore that was overlooked in mainstream circles.
The Darkest Red had a fair amount of traction, as well as their cover of the Stones’ hit “Paint It Black”, but they never really attained the same level of commercial success as their contemporaries. Instead, their mark on the scene was relegated to a sizable cult following, which may explain why many bands cite them as an influence despite this relative lack of mainstream attention in comparison to the likes of As I Lay Dying or Bleeding Through. Their breakup in 2008 came not long after the release of 2007’s
Get Damned, which was received relatively poorly in relation to its predecessor.
Forget
The Darkest Red for a moment, because this has stolen the crown from under that release’s feet.
Tormentor pools more from blackened death metal than metalcore, resulting in a sound far closer to the likes of Heaven Shall Burn than Killswitch Engage, and this is no better proven than on lead single “Hand of the Divine”. In their quest to rebrand themselves, they ultimately decided to eschew the liberal usage breakdowns that defined previous records for a fully flowing piece of extreme metal from beginning to end. The songs that follow largely retain the momentum that “Hand of the Divine” brought to the table, as numbers like “The Ascent and Decline”, “Like the Weeds In the Field”, and “Mouthpiece” channel their more extreme influences brilliantly. Not a single track on here features the typical metalcore breakdown that you’d hear on an album like
The Darkest Red or
Get Damned, but instead keeps on the frenetic pace that the album established early on. While this can be seen as a negative, as it does lead to some tracks blending in with each other, it does make for a consistently punishing metal album. Vocalist Mike Williams has bore a striking resemblance to Marcus Bischoff of Heaven Shall Burn in that department for years; on this album, it seems the musicianship has finally caught up. It’s difficult to even call this “metalcore” when you take into consideration how little hardcore punk influence is present. While abandoning metalcore has certainly been a common trope this year, as seen by artists such as Parkway Drive, Memphis May Fire, and Bullet for My Valentine, this is the first I’ve heard that actually became
heavier rather than lighter.
Another element to this album that sees The Agony Scene straying away from their metalcore roots is in the lyrical content. While it’s not entirely uncommon for religion to be discussed in the genre, the usual stereotype for metalcore is that its bands are a bunch of twentysomethings writing about their first breakup. On
Tormentor however, almost every song is laden with religious imagery, particularly that of a malevolent god that seeks to torment the human race he supposedly created. Contrasting from that of
The Darkest Red, almost nothing here is written from a personal perspective. “The Apostate” details the rejection that the god within its universe endures as his creations question his existence; lines such as “His anger righteous, justified / denied by what He's created” especially expose the desire for vengeance that the god within its narrative has. His people are rejecting him, so of course he’d feel the need to retaliate. The repetition of “its rapture will leave us behind” in the concluding moments of “The Ascent and the Decline” tells the listener that humanity has declined so much that the rapture will ultimately leave them behind. Closer “Mechanical Breath” is the closest the lyrics get to the interpersonal. Lines such as “dear father, take my life / your child has lost the will to fight / the will to bleed the way you bled for me” are an admission that the writer no longer has the same desire to keep going; it’s almost like a “Fade to Black” scenario, where the writer has not the drive nor the immense fervor to continue on with his life.
If you were turned away by The Agony Scene’s prior breakdown-heavy approach to writing and wanted them to create a full-fledged metal album,
Tormentor is your new best friend. Their comeback here represents more than a back-to-basics reunion; Bleeding Through’s
Love Will Kill All may have been a brilliant return to form, but they didn’t reinvent their sound to nearly the same degree that these guys did here, instead bringing us a back-to-basics metallic hardcore album. Contrast that with this album, where the boys in The Agony Scene moved away from their roots and ended up outdoing
The Darkest Red in the process. Samey as it may be, its consistency is ultimately its greatest strength. The time between what was supposed to have been their swansong and this release brought forth a newfound energy not seen in their previous work, leading to what’s sure to be seen as a new magnum opus. Despite its dramatic increase in aggression and sheer brutality,
Tormentor is also their most commercially successful, reaching #45 on the Billboard Top Current Albums chart whereas the three prior releases had no such classification.
