Warriors - Agnostic Front

The most recent album from New York hardcore punks Agnostic Front continues to mix angry punk rock with shouty hardcore, and as but one of a seemingly endless number of similar-sounding albums having been released every year for the last couple of decades, it brings nothing new to the scene apart from some new material of Agnostic Front sounding like themselves. The whole album is based on fast, riff-heavy songs with multiple, moshable 'breakdowns' ...
...bass drums in a clicking frenzy that again permits the drummer to avoid having to put any thought into what he's doing. But of course, this is still punk first and foremost; a genre that has no delusions of Rimsky-Korsakov.

All the same, I found 'Warriors' to be a largely disappointing, or at best entirely bland experience, lacking the intensity that I can just about stomach from their contemporaries such as Sick of it All, and still ... more

The most recent album from New York hardcore punks Agnostic Front continues to mix angry punk rock with shouty hardcore, and as but one of a seemingly endless number of similar-sounding albums having been released every year for the last couple of decades, it brings nothing new to the scene apart from some new material of Agnostic Front sounding like themselves. The whole album is based on fast, riff-heavy songs with multiple, moshable 'breakdowns' as a substitution for musical diversity, backed by relentless double bass drums in a clicking frenzy that again permits the drummer to avoid having to put any thought into what he's doing. But of course, this is still punk first and foremost; a genre that has no delusions of Rimsky-Korsakov.

All the same, I found 'Warriors' to be a largely disappointing, or at best entirely bland experience, lacking the intensity that I can just about stomach from their contemporaries such as Sick of it All, and still apparently trying to earn fans from the metal world by incorporating a more 'metalcore' sound into their hardcore, extending to adding a few fairly decent guitar solos and making the guitars sound a little fiercer than the punk standard. This didn't do anything for me, naturally as someone who loathes all these modern corruptions of metal, though I did quite enjoy the traditional heavy metal style chorus of the title song, so I guess I'm as easily won over as anyone else (but by far stupider things). I'm far more interested in the band sticking to their punk roots, and this generally makes for the better songs, particularly 'Black and Blue' and 'For My Family,' the latter being about as close to a love song as punk should ever be allowed to get, as a brotherly tribute to the band's closest friends and community spirit. But still shouted and bitter, obviously.

Roger Miret's hardcore yell is enough to put me off ever listening to this band again, threatening to mellow out as late as the eleventh song, but still not quite getting there. I've never been a fan of this confrontational vocal style (makes you wonder why I listen to this genre at all really), and although the rest of the instruments are a little better than the average for punk, it's all but expected for such a relatively high profile band. There's plenty of swearing and aggro, balanced out by occasional positive feelings to prove that the band is still human, though to be honest the self-explanatory 'Forgive Me Mother' is a little cringe-worthy in its sentiment, and it's hard to take Miret completely seriously as he adopts this kindly woman's persona and yells what he imagines she might be thinking. Although I seem to be opposed to the lead vocalist's needless yells, I conversely really enjoy the unison yelling of the band in the punk choruses. And as for the ridiculous macho aggression cover, it at least gives a fair indication of what to expect from the album - and, presumably, any accompanying live shows.

It's my own fault for listening to all music with preconceptions that it should be a little varied or original in order to entertain me, but 'Warriors' feels completely like a simple clone of every other hardcore punk album in existence. There are a couple of nice touches that keep it from being pointless, namely the slower and more thoughtful songs such as 'We Want the Truth' and 'Come Alive,' and the slightly free-form 'By My Side' until it lets rip with another round of breakdowns, but there's no way this could make it to the essential purchases list of anyone but a dedicated Agnostic Front fan who refused to open their mind and listen to the much better versions of the same thing being produced elsewhere. The songs are all insubstantial, being too short to be of much worth but thankfully not so long that they become annoying in of themselves, and on the whole it's quite a confusing release from Nuclear Blast, who routinely specialise in Scandinavian extreme metal.

If you're an old-time punk who's interested in seeing how your favourite genre has been corrupted by today's angry acts, this is as good a place as any. Unless of course you want to be really sickened, in which case I point you in the happy-crappy direction of Blink-182 and their ilk.

1. Addiction
2. Dead to Me
3. Outraged
4. Warriors
5. Black and Blue
6. Change Your Ways
7. For My Family
8. No Regrets
9. Revenge
10. We Want the Truth
11. By My Side
12. Come Alive
13. All These Years
14. Forgive Me Mother
15. Break the Chains 

...less