Antagonist

This outfit sprang up, literally out of nowhere, in the early-90’s and must have dumbfounded the swiftly-diminishing old school audience at the time with their utterly unique, offbeat style. The guys based their repertoire on technical, jumpy retro power/thrash, but before the listener decides he’s figured it all out comes an explosive brutal proto-deathy section to tear the intricate idyll as the latter application is almost never heralded and will continuously startle the fan throughout.

"Black Sands of Time" is the flag carrier of this eccentric effort, a least predictable shredder which crosses wayward stylish speed/thrash in the vein of Savage Steel’s “Do or Die” with violent escapades taken straight from the Hellwitch and Thanatos textbooks, this unorthodox mixture enhanced by surreal angular jolts that only Slauter Xstroyes’ “Winter Kill” has offered previously. More melodic hooks come pouring with "Dead Priest", but not before it shocks the listener with the brutal deathy intro, the jarring oddball rifforamas commencing shortly after, the only slightly more linear respite being the power metal hymn "Lies After Death". "Good Day to Die" is another hallucinogenic experience blending power, thrash and proto-death into one dizzying, hyper-active fiesta which goes on on full-throttle, only without the thrash and the death, on "Live in Fear”, a technical dramatic power metal piece that would have stood just fine on the mentioned Slauter album. "Cracking Skulls" brings back the three style-amalgam with mazey, tightly woven riff-knots and the staple wayward speedy escapades the headbanging atmosphere reaching a feverish climax mid-way.

The expressive semi-clean vocals are an able assistant although the guy never truly shines, obviously content with his second fiddle status, attempting a couple of more dramatic antics here and there. It may take some time for the fan to get used to these abrupt, unexpected switches from technicality to brutality as the latter doesn’t quite come served with more complex elements being direct, stripped-down bash for most of the time. Some may find this delivery plain awkward and over-the-top, but since this particular combination hasn’t been heard before, and even after, one would do no wrong giving the guys thumbs up for musical audacity.

The second EP would come as a cold shower on a black winter’s day, at least to those who were expecting a similar eye-opener. What the band had decided to settle for on this second instalment was pretty standard epic power metal with echoes of Manowar and Heavy Load, their compatriots honoured with a cover of “Kill with Power”. Nothing really striking, even plain dull at times, this effort was the last creative output the guys put their signatures under as the recently released “Damned and Cursed...to Life on Earth” compilation contains the EP here plus live recordings from it and a couple of covers (not the Manowar one, though). From protagonists to antagonists… the road not very often travelled, and the one that can always be reversed with the more or less intentional dash of bizarre, brutal creativity.