Written By Kevin McSweeney
Please forgive us our tardiness on this one. Angona released their EP/mini-album Ashborn (their seventh such release in a 14-year career that, astonishingly, has yet to feature a single full-length album) via Balyoz Müzik on November 24th, so it’s taken us a while to get round to it.
My American associates have been celebrating Thanksgiving, whereas I’m just a lazy twat, so apologies for that. Seeing as though we’ve just had Thanksgiving, it would be nice to feature something from Turkey, if you’ll pardon the lame joke. (It won’t be the last.) Now, let’s carve up this bountiful offering into six succulent slices for your delectation! Bless these musical gifts we are about to receive!
Ashborn
There’s something about the beautiful but slightly discomfiting piano intro that serves as the title track that makes me think they’re about to launch into a version of MacArthur Park.
A cover of the epic Jimmy Webb masterpiece would take up almost half the duration of this mini-album, however, so it’s for the best that that’s not the case.
The vocals articulate a different agony altogether. It’s not the bittersweet lament of a lost love, but rather the anguished wails of startling phrases such as: “Walls keep rising higher than my scream!” It’s a deeply unsettling minute and ten seconds to begin proceedings.
Mold Stench
This charmingly-titled number commences with a brute of a riff straight from The Subliminal Verses, with a syncopated kick drum pattern of which any metalcore drummer would be rightly proud. Seth Rollins might want to have words about the opening cry of “Burn it down!”
There are some choice lyrics on offer, however, with such exquisite lines as: “Mold on the ceiling is my neon sky.” That’s one to remember if I ever sell the gaff! We have verses that are Lamb of God-style groove metal alternating with metalcore breakdowns. It’s a catchy, punchy, eminently danceable opening track proper.
No White Light
I’m reminded very much of Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven by this track. Much of Angona’s sound seems to be rooted in groove metal, though it’s typically more akin to the kind dished out by Lamb of God.
On No White Light, however, we have the brutally slow stompiness of Slaughtered mixed with the bursts of frenetic speed in evidence on Strength Beyond Strength.
Plus, the line: “I tear the dark apart – the night is mine” could have given us two titles from the pre-Anselmo era! We get a breakdown at the end of the track complete with string bends and pig squeals of which Dimebag would have been proud.
Shatter The Chains
It’s precisely this mindset that got me barred from Selfridges, you know. There’s a real flavour of Fear Factory on this one, minus the synths and overt industrial atmospherics.
The riffs could well have been formed by the fingers of Dino Cazares and the song as a whole is reminiscent of something like Crash Test or New Breed – tracks where Burton C. Bell thought it best to dispense with the clean vocals altogether.
Having said that, we do get something along the lines of melodic vocals from Uktu on this song. It’s still a coarse gravelly vocal performance but there’s an element of musical notation in there when we get to the middle part of the song, and towards the end. I wasn’t expecting that, and it’s a pleasant surprise.
Drown in Your Own Blood
I do love a drum intro, and we get a nice one at the start of Drown In Your Own Blood. It’s sort of like Painkiller’s feisty little brother!
Also, we get moderate-paced rolling kick drums as is the case in the Judas Priest classic, though the tribal-style drumming in the middle, complete with sharply executed hertas, brings to mind the mighty Sepultura in their mid-90s groove metal heyday.
Beyond the percussion, it’s muscular staccato riffs and raw-throated aggression throughout.
Lines like “I face your spite while your kingdom falls” bring to mind Robb Flynn, and I could well imagine him roaring them out.
Echoes of Rage
The closing track is the longest on offer on this mini-album, and has a title like an early 1990s arcade game!
Full-band hertas introduce a track that soon opens up into mid-paced thrash driven along by rolling kick drums, reminiscent of Propaganda.
No, not the German synth pop band who sang Duel. I’m talking about the ferocious cut from Sepultura’s landmark Chaos AD album.
The lyrics are strangely poetic, with lines such as “fallen dreams in neon light … Drown in the echoes of our dream.” It’s almost proggy, and somewhat at odds with the ferocity of the track, but that is no bad thing.
Some tinkering with the time signature and an alternating between breakdown and chorus brings to a close a highly enjoyable mini-album that went by too quickly. A small but tasty morsel, it’s an eighteen-and-a-half-minute piece…
Don’t do it, Kevin! Don’t make the joke! The readers deserve better!
…of Turkish Delight!
You’re fired! Metal Lair awards Ashborn by Angona four Devil Horns out of five
Tracklisting:
1. Ashborn 01:10
2. Mold Stench 03:00
3. No White Light 02:48
4. Shatter The Chains 03:31
5. Drown in Your Own Blood 03:22
6. Echoes of Rage 04:41
Total:18:32
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