G&P review: Agathocles

Agathocles
Grind is Protest
Dis-Order
There are plenty of grind bands who have reached the pantheon of metal’s elite sans bass player, but it’s refreshing to hear an album like Grind is Protest that not only appreciates what four strings can bring to the fold but actively shoves them to the forefront of the mix, bludgeoning the listener with a cacophonous barrage of low end punishment.
I hope Phobia is taking copious notes because Grind is Protest is everything 22 Random Acts of Violence should have been: a gasping, relentless, bass-heavy assault on the senses with all of the subtlety of a ball peen hammer to the back of the skull in a blind alley after a night of ill advised boozing.
The mincecore is mincing and the blastbeats snap along with that same tinny snare tone I’ve come to associate with Agathocles and St. Anger. But cutting through the mix is the bass: every single strum and thrum is clearly audible. Bassist Tony’s (RIP) four string assaults really drive Grind is Protest. On their eleventy-billionth release, Agathocles once again lay into all the usual suspects, fuming and raging against militarism, fascisms and a whole host of other bad –isms with the single-mindedness that’s prerequisite to spending 20 years trying to make a career out of dozens of splits with no name bands on fly by night labels and poorly attended basement shows while giving the finger to niceties like health insurance, rent money and retirement funds. I wish Tony were still here to enjoy it.