Agatus - The Weaving Fates (2002)

The Weaving Fates is another highly lauded record from Greeks Agatus, but once again I must take exception to the enormous amounts of praise I have seen targeted in its direction. Oh, this is a decent accounting of the band's talents, and superior to the debut, yet not even remotely extraordinary. Where it exceeds the Dawn of Martyrdom is in the production, and by a lesser margin, the writing. The sophomore takes a more organic approach to the guitar tone, but the whole mix is refreshingly clean, where its predecessor was far more of an epic, harried charge of melodic black metal which drew upon the obvious Swedish parallels. The Weaving Fates is still quite melodic, mind you, but the guitars are so brazen and straight in your face that it does a more effective job of hammering the point.

There's also a potent, barbaric measure to a number of the tracks that almost betrays the cheesy eloquence of its cover art. Straight heavy metal chord patterns are 'woven' through the faster, bleeding breaks of melody and the result often makes you want to slam a mug of your chosen ambrosia down on the temple floor. "The Weaving Fates", "Night of a Thousand Stars", and "Προγονολατρία (Ancestor Worship)" all exemplify such a principle, the latter my personal favorite of the band's career for its glistening, blissful bridge. Though the primary focus is on the guitars, the drums are also solid, and Agatus have not abandoned the synthesizers so favored by their Greek peers. Occasionally, these still feel somewhat cheesy, but I'd attribute this to the bright pads chosen to stand out from the guitar lines more than anything else. The harsher black metal vocals are just as bland as they have been for the previous releases, but Eskarth and Vorskaath will often use a more conversational, grimy tone that is far more appreciable if understated.

One aspect of the sophomore that I didn't really care for are the interludes and outros, which are pretty predictable, 'ancient' acoustic pieces with a minimum of percussion that never seem to go anywhere. The hidden 'outro' is a complete waste of time, one of those little clips of screwing around in the studio, packed into several minutes of silence. Who cares? At least tell a real joke or do something funny. The cover art is ugly and looks like a bad Romance novel from a time forlorn, or 1987. The lyrics are a mesh of the occult and mythological typically attributed to the Greek scene, but some of them are mediocre at best ("Era of Tiamat", "Προγονολατρία", or the title track). In the end, while a punchier and more poignant effort than the middling Dawn of Martyrdom, I simply have never derived as much enjoyment from this release as I have from Necromantia, Rotting Christ, Varathron, or a number of other Hellenic mainstays, including the brothers' other band Zemial, who are far more crude and evil than this. That said, The Weaving Fates would be unquestionably the place to start in the Agatus catalog.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (before I stopped to behold)

http://www.myspace.com/agatus

Agatus - Rite of Metamorphosis EP (1997)

Having been pretty pleased with the full-length Zemial debut For the Glory of UR, despite its often flawed simplicity, I was curious as to what the brothers 'Vorskaath' and 'Eskarth' had in store for the next Agatus release. Not as big a fan of this band as many seem to be, but if there's any reason Rite of Metamorphosis falters, it is not necessarily that the music itself is all that miserable, just that the production is pretty low key and doesn't do it any favors. The duo was still casting their lot in with the Scandinavian, melodic black metal that primarily originated through Sweden, but I felt a few closer tinges of the fellow Greeks, in particular Rotting Christ when the band breaks into a steady gallop.

Just two songs of straight, driving melodic black at around six minutes each, and while neither is all that convincing, I found the titular "Rite of Metamorphosis" to possess the more uplifting, if predictable guitar riffing. The proggy organ that arrives in the bridge is a sweet touch, and the ensuing, mid-paced strut is accessibly epic and swaggering. However, the atmospherics erupting in "Sorcerers Until the End of Time" feel better gestated, with thundering timpani and numbing synthesized violins affixed to the bleeding guitar stream. This is the faster of the two, blasting along vapidly for much of its length, and the riffs have a bit more pep, but it just never attracted my attention until its mid sequence.

As I hinted, the production here is not the forte. Not bad enough that you can't hear everything, but it feels muffled and repressed like a demo somewhere below Agatus. A bit of a letdown, because even if I didn't enjoy Dawn of Martyrdom, at least that sounded good. With stronger guitar tones and better depth, these same two songs would be far more effective, but most of the peaks and valleys here are rendered into the same, rusted landscape of indifference. The vocals for this band have never impressed me, but they're especially bland here, and perhaps the most strident contributor to the EP's overall mediocrity. All of this would be improved for the band's full-length followup The Weaving Fates (five years later), but Rites of Metamorphosis fails to distinguish itself against hundreds of other European black metal releases through the 90s, and even if it has some curious touches during the bridges, this style was far better off in the hands of bands like Sacramentum, Lord Belial or Dissection.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10] (feed the hungry souls)

http://www.myspace.com/agatus

Agatus - Dawn of Martyrdom (1994)

Oddly enough, I know a small number of individuals who prize this debut album, and its successor The Weaving Fates (from 2002) as two of the finest hours in all European black metal. Not only Greece, mind you, but the whole damned continent. While I am inclined to disagree with any such notion, I just find the sentiment striking: surely everything the band performs on Dawn of Martyrdom is pretty much par for the course from this genre in the mid-90s, with riffing streams that rarely evoke surprise, strong but standard drum work, the typical Greek flare for dramatic but uninspiring keyboard presentations and a powerful but ultimately futile frontman.

Now, Agatus might sound better put together, at least for its time, than the other bands the members were involved with (primarily Zemial), but this is about the best thing I can say for them. Okay, maybe not: it's gotta be the outrageous tags the members used, like Eskarth the Dark One, Archon Vorskaath, and Prince Korthnage. All far more involved and barbaric than the usual handles being adopted by their northern kin. Dawn of Martyrdom is pretty much the definition of 'stock black metal', with not a single riff in about 51 minutes that goes anywhere you wouldn't expect it to. Think of the band as a merger of the core principles in the Greek scene (slower, glorious movements and melodies, plenty of synthesizer, and simple leads) and the Viking-like grandeur of bands like post-'88 Bathory, Enslaved and Immortal, and you've got a pretty clear picture of what they were attempting to accomplish.

There are plenty of rigorous, stomping open chord sequences as in "Force of Desecration" that scrawl at a mid pace, and then faster, more driving segments in "Emerge...Through My Diabolic Possession" or "Demons of the Great Kingdom", not to mention the clean guitar, ambient segues like "When the Macabre Dance Begins"; so Agatus is nothing if not mildly diverse in approach, and that trait lends itself well to the overall solidarity of the debut. The vocals are cast in the standard, malicious mold reminiscent of Quorthon (circa Blood Fire Death), but they never take the album to quite the next level. I'd credit Dawn of Martyrdom for having what must have been among the best production in Greece at the time, and the album trumps its neighbors Thy Mighty Contract, Non Serviam and His Majesty at the Swamp in at least that regard, but the writing in general is bland and forgettable, and nowhere near as 'diabolic' as the band seems to wish an impression upon its audience.

You may not have heard this album a thousand times before 1994, but you've certainly heard it since, and the chronological positioning of the Agatus debut in no way makes it remarkable enough to live up to its hype. Compare the album to In the Nightside Eclipse, Frost, Pure Holocaust or even For All Tid and it comes up short. However, it is hardly torment to listen through, it was massive sounding for the time, and if you are interested in something decidedly Greek with huge hints of the Scandinavian scene involved, it was perhaps the one place you could actually turn to. You'll also want to beware the No Colours 'bootleg'; unfortunately the one I'm reviewing, which has incorrect song titles even if they were nice enough to tack on the band's 1993 demo. Also, if it ever came down to a choice between both Agatus full-lengths, go with The Weaving Fates: the atmosphere there is somewhat less grandiose, but the writing is better and the guitar tone adds a lot of punch to the melodies.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

http://www.myspace.com/agatus