April 27, 2010

Reviewer: Jesse

Truly epic.  That’s the first phrase that comes to mind when describing Agrypnie’s third full-length album 16[485].  After only having a passing relationship with their previous albums, I was not expecting nor was I prepared for the magnitude of this album and after a solid week of listening to basically nothing but this, I think I’m finally ready to type this up.  But even still, I’m constantly amazed after the twentieth spin by things I missed out on during the previous nineteen times.  We’ve all had those albums where our favorite track changes over and over and imagine that happening on an album that is nearly eighty minutes longs.  It’s almost pure listening bliss.

A mixture of dark, atmospheric, blackened death metal, 16[485] is almost as hard to describe as it is to figure out what that title means.  With only the slightest amount of keyboards, Agrypnie manages to fuse melody and emotion with thunderous aggression to create an aura of sheer brilliance in this genre that I honestly have not heard before… at least not in a long time.  Without the help of any foreign instruments and aside from the minimal background synth, 16[485] is what I consider to be bare-bones metal as it’s just the guitars and drums with an incredible amount of utterly passionate and creative song-writing.  Songs that eclipse seven, eight and nine minutes that just come to life in a fantastically memorable fashion.  That’s the important thing here, that this album will etch itself into your memory right from the get-go.

There’s a massive amount of variation on this album from song to song without ever changing the flow or mood.  Each song seems to be in its own world as no two songs sound the same and there is zero filler.  Not one worthless throw-away track taking up space and that, to me, is frankly astounding when considering the length of 16[485].  There aren’t any tricks being pulled or some kind of gimmicky or predictable blueprint for what Agrypnie does as each track is clearly its own entity all together. Vocally, Torsten has a ton of range but very distinguishable and not a cookie-cutter screamer or growler in any way.  In fact, and especially on the opening track “Der tote Trakt,” he almost sounds like a black metal version of Martin Van Drunen, but overall, he has a purely unique and impassioned delivery in his screams.

Each year, an album usually seems to come out of nowhere that I wasn’t expecting to be so good, but this time, just simply saying how surprised I am would be entirely lazy on my part.  “Surprised” is just the beginning.  “Floored” is getting somewhere.  “Humbled to the point of full-body goose bumps while falling to my knees” is about as close as I can get to describing the effect this album has had on me.  A wholly magnificent work of art that transcends a genre is a rare thing these days and Agrypnie has just done it.  Take a bow.

Release Date: January 15th, 2010
Label: Supreme Chaos Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Figur 109-3
2.  Der tote Trakt
3.  Kadavergehorsam
4.  Verfall
5.  Schlaf
6.  Zorn
7.  F15.2
8.  Morgen
9.  16[485] / Brücke aus Glas
10.  Figur 109-1

Total playing time:  01:13:33

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Agrypnie - 16[485]