Christ Agony
Nocturn

Christ how I have agonised over this album review, thanks to the gadgets of Apple. For some reason this album could not be converted into files that did not make the iPod completely crash every time played, so blame Crapple for this review being late. The album was released in 2011 and it is the ninth studio album by polish Christ Agony who are judging by their name and album cover are leaning towards the extreme side of things with crosses upside down and all of that stuff. And the consensus amongst the internet reviewers are that they are a black metal band and those same reviewers have stated that it is everything from very ordinary to a very good album he are dealing with in Nocturn. One thing we do know is that they are an experienced band considering over 20 years of history to date.

They are musically playing on the black metal arena, not much agony going on in the music but a few references to christianity are there so I suppose they are as Bible loving as your next extreme metal fanatic. The music is also rather slow and the vocalist growls on like some vicious fellow, he almost feels like a prior of the Ori whom we all know are quite bad. There are eight opuses on this album if we are to believe the marketing people and those play for around 45 minutes where the variation amongst the opuses is far from gigantic but it is not absent completely either. I think no one who has a slight understanding of black metal will be surprised about what they will hear on this album, the very nice sound however might surprise some, I found the production surprisingly good for a band not yet over the ground when it comes to public awareness.

So a quite ordinary black metal band with a good production is almost like the movie Avatar, a predictable story very beautifully told. It almost works once but then you see through it for the unimaginative and boring handywork it really is and that is the thing with Avatar and with Christ Agony, you see you can compare the expensive Hollywood production with cheap black metal because the content is often the same as it is made to appeal to a focus group but not really hold any cultural value. Christ Agony’s music on Nocturn is the same as this genre has been churning out in droves over the years and discounting the production quality nothing has changed it is the same riffs, the same grunting vocals, the same lyrical themes and the same headache and lack of lust for life when it ends. This album is surely well made and the fans of the genre will probably love it but to be honest it offers nothing that isn’t already out there and honestly what is the point of making more of the same? it is like trying to make a name for oneself in the field of copy paper with one more punched office paper with the same whiteness as all cheap copy papers and the same price and packing, it will not work and if the world was logical music like this would not work either.

Now it sounds like I hate this album, I don’t, I just find it being just another album in a genre that stopped being inventive long, long ago. Sure some people always look for bands going back to the roots and so on but they don’t do that either as they have a modern production and sounds much more polished than the pioneering bands of the genre did. I don’t really know the point of this album if I am honest, is it just for keeping up releasing albums? to show that the band is still around, I don’t know but they surely does not offer anything I haven’t already heard and if there is something in music I tend to dislike it is lack of creativity and this album shows just that. Honestly, what is the point with this album? I see nothing that merits anyone to pick it up before something released prior to it.