ANTAGONY — See Through These Eyes (review)

ANTAGONY — See Through These Eyes album cover

Album · 2001 · Deathcore

4/5 · 2024-01-16
siLLy puPPy

One of the San Francisco Bay Area’s pioneering underground extreme metal bands, ANTAGONY which formed in the East Bay suburb of Danville in 1996 is notable as one of the very first bands to fuse its early grindcore and metalcore styles with death metal which led to the oft loathed and misunderstood subgenre now called deathcore. With an initial run from 1996 to 2009, the band broke up and then reformed in 2019. Essentially forming in the ashes of the metalcore band Y.F.H, ANTAGONY already began to experiment with a bizarre mix of grindcore, post-hardcore, tribal drumming and doom metal on its earliest EPs.

SEE THROUGH THESE EYES was the band’s debut full-length released in 2001 and soon got the underground metal world’s attention which immediately led to the band playing with several better known acts ranging from Pig Destroyer and Cattle Decapitation to Intronaut, Incantation, Dystopia, Obituary and many others. And rightfully so as the four members of the time (Nick Vasallo (guitar, vocals), Ben Orum (guitar, vocals), Justin Hughes (drums), Carlos Saldana (bass) really crafted something unique with this one. Unfortunately after the band’s Triangle of Hate tour of 2002, the band fell apart and never captured the same sound as on this debut.

SEE THROUGH THESE EYES is a mondo-freakish mix of Pig Destroyer styled grindcore, old school death metal and metalcore. The album is made all the more bizarre by slow plodding clean guitar parts that are creepily downtuned. The music is generally riff based existing somewhere in the world of grindcore or old school death metal but often in between. While some consider this the very first deathcore album, it’s not really a completely maturation of the style and sounds like a collective of elements just beginning to get acquainted and finding collaborative ways to mix and mingle at the party. Unusual for a “core” album, SEE THROUGH THESE EYES features many tempo changes, variations in guitar riffage and even a broader spectrum than usual for vocal styles. The one weak element on this album is the rather amateurish drumming which doesn’t match the musical potential.

Despite the album coming off as rather a DIY lo-fi garage project in many ways, the creativity is actually firing on all pistons making this a compelling slice of extreme metal that straddles the old school 90s and the early 21st century world of more technical and hybridized metal. It’s apparent quickly why these guys were quite the sensation live at this stage as they crank out their unique style in a highly energetic manic frenzy but allow slower brooding moments to let the dread and awe to creep back in. Unlike many brutal death metal bands and modern deathcore, this one is replete in variations in dynamics, metal styles and overall presentation. The vocals are quite extreme mostly shouted from under the din of the guitar, bass and drum attacks. Screams, growls, grunts and good old fashioned shouting changes things up. Sound samples add a bit of sonic variety as well.

I’m pretty enamored with this one as the band would get more polished with subsequent lineup changes. While i would have preferred a more competent drummer, the percussion is not horrible by any means and given the underground nature of this recording actually works on some levels. This lineup would soon splinter with Ben Orum moving on to form All Shall Perish and Justin Hughes going on to form Hacksaw To The Throat. Overall this is an amazing raw and filthy early deathcore experience that offers the element of surprise and a nice palette of musical motifs and ideas. A short moment in the band’s history that would never be repeated but a triumphantly successful one as far as extreme underground metal is concerned.