AGRIMONIA — Rites of Separation (review)

AGRIMONIA — Rites of Separation album cover Album · 2013 · Atmospheric Sludge Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Time Signature
A battle fought...

Genre: Agrimonia metal

Agrimonia hails from Sweden, and, as you know, that in itself is pretty much a stamp of quality. In any case, this is an interesting band who are not afraid to trangress boundaries.

Their second full-length effort "Rites of Separation" is quite hard to place in any well-defined genre box. It has black metal aesthetics, but the music is too melodic to be black metal. There are doom metal aesthetics, but the music is too fast to be doom metal. It has elements of sludge metal, but the music is not minimalistic enough to be sludge metal. There are elements of post-metal, but the music is too metal to be post-metal. Some people prefer music that can be easily pigeonholed, and other people like to be challenged; this album definitely appeals to the latter group.

With the exception of 'The Battle Fought', we are dealing with songs of 10+ minutes of length. This allows Agrimonia to take the listener through complex vistas of impressions. They successfully combine the melancholic with the atmospheric, and all tracks are very expressive. 'The Battle fought' and 'Talion' lean more towards melodic black metal while 'Hunted' is more atmospheric, and there are doomy elements in 'While Life Lies'. An extra black metal dimension is added by vocalist Christina's harsh voice.

If you are into epic and dark, eclectic metal, then this is definitely an album you should not miss out on.
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J-Man wrote:
more than 2 years ago
This sounds up my alley. Nice review!

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