There's a whole ton of crap Agathocles out there so it's always enormously refreshing to come across the band's absolute golden material, especially on the 7" format. With the full lengths you kinda know where you are, but it is so easy to get lost in the group's endless reams of releases. Fascination Of Mutilation was a flexi released in 1990 on Rigid Records, so it's an early one in the band's life. General rule of thumb is - early Agathocles can't go far wrong. In my opinion, at least.
Fascination Of Mutilation is super short at only 5 minutes in length (being only on one side of a flexi, not like the fancy two sided flexis we get these days) but contains so many awesome recordings of Agathocles classics that its ironic quality-over-quantity approach more than makes up for it. "Threshold To Senility", "Gorgonized Dorks" and "Lay Off Me' all go down as well as the first beer at a summer festival. Cannot fault it.
This is a super short demo tape from mincing goregrind outfit Gabara. It's barely a few minutes in length but it sounds so fuckin' good that I just had to share it with you guys. Basically it takes everything that is good about early Agathocles and mashes in a bit of goregrind sound. Slap some weirdly-fitting Godzilla-looking artwork on the cover and you can just conjure up visions of this beast smashing cities to bits with this tape playing as the soundtrack.
I can't really say more because it's so short so I'll just leave a link to stream this motherfucker right here for you, and be on my merry way. See you tomorrow, freaks.
This is one of my favourite things so far in my never-ending adventure into the discography of Belgium's Agathocles. I've seen it about for years, probably since it's release, but have just never got around to buying it. I finally picked it up (dirt cheap) at some stall at Obscene Extreme festival in the Czech Republic. I don't think the stall had a name but it was a gazebo being shared by two guys selling different records. One of them was the vocalist from Entrails Massacre, I remember that much.
If you are familiar with Agathocles then you already know what to expect from a full length such as this; fast and to-the-point "mince"core with gut-addling bass and shrieked or yelped vocals, dusted off with the odd helping of pitch-shifted lows to complete the grinding cocktail! Opening track "Dethrone The Tyrant" is an Agathocles instant classic, and even spawned an EP of the same name. "Yuppie Career Freak" and "Diary Of White Trash" are two more examples of Agathocles at their blasting brilliance, as are the title track "Mincer" and the hilarious "Pricks At Gigs". "Goredom - Boredom" again shows the band's endless disdain for goregrind, porngrind and the related imagery and lyrical themes present therein.
My copy is a fantastic deep transparent blue, which is great because I was expecting it to be black for some reason or other. This was released on Power It Up in Germany in 200? and is still really easy to find, so get a copy already!
Semtex 10 is a blast-happy, bombastic, fairly recent 3 song EP by unstoppable Belgian grindcore (sorry, mincecore) brigade Agathocles. As it contains more than just 4 different versions of "Trust? Not Me" it is totally worth picking up! As far as I can tell the songs seem to be original, which is what I'm all about. My only gripe is that there is no tracklisting or info whatsoever anywhere on the release. If you bought this at a gig or whilst browsing a distro you wouldn't even know what it's fucking called because there isn't even a title on this thing. Smart move, Sunship Records.
Anyway, I'm not here to judge people for their choice of included information, I'm here to listen to Agathocles, bitches. "Detonating Nitroglycerin" is a very typical but extremely enjoyable AGx track, but the title track is all kinds of weird. "Dormant Cell" on side B seems to strangely and surrealistically mix the previous two tracks together into a new concoction.
This release is limited to 500 copies, 250 on black and 250 on purple.
What I have here for review is the 1997 Morbid Records (RIP) LP release of Humarrogance. The sound is that of the usual Agathocles stock, if not a little crisper than most recordings. The tracks blast and grind away with impressive mincing fury until it comes to an abrupt halt at the start of track eight, “White Horse”. This song has a strange rock and roll vibe to it, and it is very refreshing to hear Agathocles mince through something with such a prominent groove factor. The tracks that follow, “Ain’t I?” and the interestingly titled “Beam Me Up, Scotty”, are of equal quality and I find myself banging my head like an idiot.
The four bonus tracks that come on the CD version (I have that too) are either live gigs or live rehearsals of songs that hark back to Agathocles’ earlier days, with even pitch-shifted vocals in tow. The quality of sound on some of these tracks is pretty grim, but enjoyable none-the-less. It is my opinion that these tracks belong on a seven inch record, to truly emphasize the crust factor (actually chances are they have already appeared on seven inch about 37 different times).
The artwork perplexes me. It reeks of the typical D.I.Y. ethic you come to expect of grindcore, but the front sleeve is something else entirely. It is some sort of surrealist painting by an unidentified artist. Perhaps the painting is famous, and therefore does not require a credit. This could well be the case as I have little experience with the world of “art”. It is a painting though, that much I can tell, of two ghostly figures examining objects on a clothed table; there is a butterfly, an hourglass, and what appears to be a French baguette.
Since this CD/LP was my first experience of Agathocles, and I fully appreciate this piece, I would recommend this release to any fans of grindcore, especially those looking for an in-road into the never-ending maze of Agathocles releases (trust me, it's a fucking nightmare). Although, the constant vegetarianism / anti-nazi / anti-racism / anti-fascism edge may put off some people.
The Youtube user SPEAKERHUMAN has kindly put together the whole album as a playlist, so sit back and grind away!
A quick note on looking back at this blog's beginnings: I realise how harsh I was towards Agathocles in some posts. Whilst I do tire of them constantly re-hashing the same old stuff over and over in different shitty recordings, they are an excellent grindcore band (yes, grindcore!) and when they actually make original material it is usually very good. Not to mention they are fucking excellent live!
I picked this 7" up from Nic's Bones Brigade stall on the Wormrot UK tour. It was staring me in the face and was the only thing in the 7" pile that really tickled my fancy. I had a sneaky peek inside and didn't recognise any of the tracks as being the usual 30 or so that are re-recorded again and again for splits so I took a risk and slung ol' Nic three quid and went home. What I got was one of a 1000 repressed with a blue cover and a red disc. Original pressings (also 1000 pieces) have a black cover and a transparent orange vinyl. All versions were put out in 1997 by Keloid Records.
Shikabane are fucking excellent grindcore and I will be checking these guys out more when I get some time! Japanese hypergrind anyone? Think Carcass Grinder but not as awful. Think Unholy Grave but happier and less noisecore. It reminds me greatly actually of a band I was meant to split with before called Infiltro, but the project fell apart. Sounds very similar. Excellent grind anyway, and the drum sound is brilliant. Nice bright ping ping snares all round!
Agathocles have original tracks here, so once I got over my minor heart attack I dropped the needle to the wax and enjoyed. Fucking bliss! Seriously guys, you should do this more often! Ha ha. All jokes aside, it's nice and upbeat "mince" from AGx, but with Jan's usual growls / shifts replaced with yelps and odd laughing sounds. Excellent and entertaining lyrics as usual. I will say that the AGx side is over way too quickly though. Nevermind! That means I'll just have to collect more 7"s, right guys?
PS this track is a Shikabane song from a different release. I can't find any videos for this split.
My final Agathocles 7" for the time being! Phew! This here is the cheap Agathocles split with Jan AG & The Gajna, which was not released on any label. Again, there is no pressing info online anywhere, and I am assuming that all copies are black. Considering both bands feature Jan as the frontman, the evidence points to self-release, but something about this tells me it might be a bootleg. Any clarification is welcome!
Agathocles offer one song to this 7", which is plonked right on the end of side b. It's a bit of a bummer if you bought this for collecting all the Agathocles stuff, because 90% of this 7" is the fucking abysmal Jan AG & The Gajna "music". I do not understand why there needs to be another Agathocles-style noise band? They are truely awful and I hope to never come across them again. This is my least favourite Agathocles release in my collection and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
I'm torn between selling this (edit: it's actually fucking worthless, should have seen that coming!) or keeping it in the hope of amassing a gigantic Agathocles collection one day.
This is Agathocles' short EP called "Gotcha", which is a collection of tracks that originally appeared on their split CD with Comrades (and Ravage on the Malaysia version, by yet another label) that was released by SOA Records. There isn't label or pressing info included in the release, or easily available online. It is unclear whether the band re-released these songs on this 7" themselves, or it was done as a bootleg.
Judging by the artwork quality I'd take a guess at this being a bootleg, but with Agathocles' varying degrees of output I can't really tell for sure. The sound is harsh as usual, but the mix seems to drown out a lot of the actual sound in pure distortion. If you have any information on this release then feel free to leave a comment or email me, I'm really in the dark with this one!
"Live And Noisy" is an Agathocles double 7" set organised by Bad People Records and Riotous Assembly in 1997. This is the black "repress" version, it is unclear whether the alternate grey version on 500 pieces came before or at the same time as this version.
This is one of my favourite Agathocles vinyl, probably because there isn't an awful noise band hogging the flip side to each record. Sure, the sound is really raw but I find that just lends to the overall atmosphere and sound that Agathocles are all about. Again, as with most of my Agathocles posts so far I will say that this is probably for the die-hard fans and completists only.
Released in June 2009 on Bringer Of Gore Records in Belgium. Limited edition of 335 on black.
Agathocles side is more re-recordings of classic tracks, but the recordings are great. VRV side is pointless noisecore, which is actually a bit grating on my patience. As with most split 7"s featuring Agathocles, this is most definitely a completist's item only.
Agathocles split with Embalming Theatre, released in 2000 by the now seemingly defunct Paranoia Syndrome label. Pressing limited to 1000 copies on clear/red splatter. I have number 649.
Another favourite of mine, with two masters of the 7" split meeting on one piece of vinyl. Everything by Embalming Theatre is just great (don't know why, it's just something about them that makes them very listenable for me) and it's an amazing that Agathocles seem to have written some original songs for a 7" (for a change). Shame that the label has gone out of business, because this is a fantastic 7".
