Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Agressor - The Spirit of Evil (2002)

Agressor are something of a cult entity it seems. Around for nearly forty-years, they have been banging out death/thrash metal for most of their time together. I had previously reviewed their debut album from back in 1990, gracing it with 3.5 stars due to a lack of variety. For this outing the band have done a further 12 years of output and the improvement clearly shows, working well over a shorter format also.

I located the version of this EP that contains three live tracks which are neither here nor there for me but the actual studio content here is rabid as fuck death/thrash metal. Guitarists Alex Colin-Tocquaine and Joss Sarroche are a vicious pairing and the EP even gets adorned with input from legendary death metal guitarist James Murphy on two of the studio tracks.

Overall, this is a more death metal orientated release and it is supercharged with a dark energy throughout. It is not brilliantly produced however and the drums in particular sound tepid in the mix but somehow the sound keeps a fullness to the flow, driven in the main by those superb riffs and luscious leads. Structurally, there is little fault to find here with tracks such as Wandering Soul and God From the Sky being of particular note for the quality of the writing on show.

Review Draft has unearthed a treat this month for me.