Agathocles "Alive & Mincing" CD
[Crimes Against Humanity]
Well, this is one CD that never should've been released. Don't get me wrong, Agathocles is a cool band, but they're way overrated as far as releases go, and the deluge of constant new CD's, vinyl, tapes, etc. just makes no sense to me, especially in this case. No one really needs a 43-minute live set recorded in Wermelskirchen, Germany back in September of 2000, especially when the recording, while pretty decent considering, just isn't strong enough to warrant releasing it on CD. You can hear what's going on, but there's a lot of distance to the music, and the vocals are entirely too dominant in the mix. The guitars need to be a lot louder and more in your face, and the drums need to give less emphasis to the cymbals. Musically, of course, you'll get a ton of brief tracks of vicious grind with an emphasis on speed and vocals that shift back and forth from growled shouts to high cackles. If you've ever heard the band before you'll know what to expect. And like I said, they're good at what they do, I like 'em for the most part, they use speed fairly well and mix it up with a lot of classic midpaced grind riffs, etc. But let's face it, this is pretty boring. Aside from the fact that the recording's not the most efficient, it's not that interesting to listen to these songs in slightly altered form without any real live sense other than the band members introducing each track - usually with no more than a title, perhaps a bit more banter if you're lucky. Plus, this fucker has one of the worst layouts I've ever seen in my life, and the label knows it, because they went so far as to include a note with the promos that states that they had nothing to do with the graphic design and don't want to be blamed for it. It's all in black and white with absolutely terrible images of circular sawblades and pisspoor font choices, plus one band photo and minimal recording information. A true nightmare. If I ran a label I'd flat out refuse to release this if I was passed a layout like this one. What the hell was the band thinking? I don't know what to say, I guess some people might be into this, and it does sound okay, but as a whole there's no reason to have invested money in putting this thing out. This is definitely the worst release that usually on point Crimes Against Humanity has ever had a hand in. (4/10)
Running time - 43:37, Tracks: 28
[Notable tracks: Introtyl, Labelisation, You Bet, Glass Eyes, Raw War]
Crimes Against Humanity Records - http://www.cahrecords.com

This review has been displayed 2100 times.