Lebel: Independent
Date: May 26th, 2024
To be honest, I was thinking about writing this review for quite a long time since I finally decided to do it. And the reason here absolutely wasn’t where Antagonist is coming from! Especially that as I know huge parts of the Russian metal scene don’t support, more (what’s potentially dangerous for them) or less clearly, war. It just was waiting for its time, we can say. You know, I have quite a lot of stuff in line, what’s my “fault” – I search for new music “too actively”, it seems. Besides, by writing my scribbles about “Imminence” I continue my self-service as well. Anyways, Antagonist was born in 2017 in the second largest, but at the same time cultural, economic, scientist and tourist center of Russian Far East. Vladivostok is also the region’s main port.
“Imminence” is the third full-length of the band, released independently by Antagonist itself not too long ago – May 26th. It’s also, and here I use words of the ensemble, experimental one. But this experiment isn’t about music itself. I mean, this isn’t any kind of so-called experimental Metal, which in most cases has nothing to do with what we all love the most. That’s still pure death metal. Well, using the word “still” isn’t very accurate in this case, I guess. You know, songs were created between 2017 and 2020, but they were never published. Maybe it was like that, because in most of the tracks, the exception is Ray Smith, who participates in two ones and Joon Svedelius Lindström – four, there’s another guest vocalist (coming not only from Russia, but also the States, Malta, Sweden or Greece). It’s something we can, and even should call, an experiment. At least during these almost three decades I listened to metal, and even much more I do it to Rock in general, didn’t see albums like that, as I remember. Music itself is, like I mentioned before, death metal and there’s no place for some experiments in meaning of mixing genres and so on here. I mean, Antagonist’s creativity is surely a very technical one, but at the same time the most important thing here is of course brutality. And this is old school death metal from a to z we’re able to listen to. Of course, you can hear some differences between songs, but that’s something natural considering they were created over a three-years period. Anyways, differences aren’t huge and in general guys play mostly in middle tempos with some speed-ups. Everything’s here just like it should be in such creativity – broken, brutal and fast riffs, several guitar tricks (honestly, they take place quite often), developed drumming with what I like very much, huge participation of cymbals, extreme vocals. We have a broad spectrum of them here. All of them are some kind of growling for sure, but… And I just can’t tell you which vocalist I like the most. To be honest, I like this diversity very much and in my opinion they all match Vladivostok’s residents’ music very well. I know not everyone likes the idea of releasing such stuff, saying it feels like some compilation of several bands and so on, but who cares? I haven’t changed my mind at this point. Well, I’ll tell you even more, I’m an extremely weird person and as more opinions like that I’d hear as much will defend Antagonist’s decision to release this! An argument “it feels like a compilation of several bands” can be used only by someone who didn’t hear “Imminence” or is dumb like a stone. Besides, why the hell shouldn’t they give us the opportunity to listen to such great tracks? Is it so important to have one and the same vocalist in all songs? Is there some rule which says it? My answer is: no. If bands can invite several guitarists, bassists or drummers as guests then they can do the same with vocalists.
In general, it’s more about the East Coast way of playing death metal. But there are of course some signs of other schools, Dutch for example. Anyways, I just reminded myself I didn’t write something that’s important here. So, I do it now to avoid words about my totally unprofessional approach to the matter. “Imminence” contains thirteen songs. They’re all not too long and not too short – between four and five and a half minutes. So, as you can count, the whole thing takes almost one hour. I have to tell you I was surprised and even a little confused when I saw this information. Before I got it, I’d give myself a hand to cut it much shorter. You’ll find this album both on the oldest portal dedicated to spreading all kinds of videos and the one with the word “band” in its name. At this second one you can support the band also by buying a digital album. There’s no minimal price (I think it says a lot about the band’s values), but in my opinion it’s worth paying for that fair price – you decide yourself what it means for you.
