It’s no secret at this point as to how I feel about most current doom metal. If you have been reading you may have noticed I use words like “songless”, “talentless”, "artless" etc. These lesses are not more to me, but just less. AGNOSIS seem to be an antidote to what the usual doom doctor orders. This 3 song ep gives the sub genre a healthy dose of much-needed credibility. AGNOSIS’ music contains dynamics that leave most of the competition standing around in the stoner dust. You get the slow grind of THE MELVINS, occasional blasts of hardcore and some killer mid-paced riffing as well. “Unholy Lord” kicks things off with quite a bang and the mid-paced parts contain some killer floor tom stomp. Austin Lunn’s guitar playing is definitely more colorful than most doom hounds. Strangely enough there is no wah pedal in the proceedings anywhere to be found. His vocal style suits the music as well.

“…And We Fight to Win” starts with old school SABBATH / VITUS riffage and goes through plenty of different parts. "The End Times” is quite wicked. It is the best of these three compositions. It starts off from hardcore punk and merges into to a super slow, super heavy SWANS / FOETUS type dirge. Andrew Jude Riotto’s bass tone really goes over the top on this. The sound of down tuned four-string bass is infinitely better than a five-string any day of the week. My main complaint here is that drummer Will Scwartz used a really thin snare sound and that the bass drum could have used some more clarity. That is a minor complaint. “It would seem that AGNOSIS provides a true, passionate soundtrack to the apocalypse” ends the second paragraph of the group’s bio. I would have to agree. These guys have passion that quite a few of their peer’s lack. And apparently this is just a demo. I wonder if I will be singing the same tune when I hear this band on a full-length.

- Herring

OFFICIAL SITE: www.agnosis-music.com

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