Agnosia – A Blot On The Landscape

Agnosia

A Blot On The Landscape

by YngwieViking at 22 February 2015, 3:51 AM

After some frightening absence due to an heavy sleep of five years (at least in the studio and news category), finally Progressive Metallers AGNOSIA are back to celebrate with us all their tenth anniversary, the Greek band offered us this gift in late December 2014, a brand new release titled “A Blot On The Landscape”.

This is a great and fresh 30+ minutes EP composed by five new excellent songs and a re-recording of a track “Pain and Sickness” a rehabilitated version, originally exposed in their famous 2004's cult demo “The Inner Conflict”.

The short instrumental opening piece “In Awareness” is an unexpected but terrific instrumental that features some melodic piano lines and some fine patterns crafted by the Drums and Bass guitar couple, enhanced with interesting layers of synthesized and textured strings.

The sharp guitar riffs that dominate the creative sonic design are enlightened by some hammond organ arrangements, this method is clearly notable and efficient within “Noetic Healing” and if the band is more concentrated on the composition art than the dexterity tricks, the musicians are pretty accurate and possess all the technical chops required.

“The Dyadic Encounter” and the slightly oriental influenced “A Blessing In Disguise” are following more or less the same recipe of expertise, the concept of the leveled composition is stretched in a more melodic direction, the contrast between some heavy riffage and the harmonic soundscapes or the syncopated patterns uplifted with catchy vocal melodic sequence is efficacious.

The AGNOSIA’s characterization is clearly guided by the early 90’s Prog Metal sound, similar to giants such as FATES WARNING/ENCHANT/SHADOW GALLERY or DREAM THEATER and even the almighty CRIMSON GLORY in the softest part of the cut “Numb” featuring a soft symphonic arrangement and a very sensitive vocal performance by the obviously gifted and talented singer Takis Nikolakakis (also acting as front man with the great PSYCRENCE) .

If, the closing reworked number ”Pain and Sickness” is more tagged in the Power Metal style it still contains some clever appogiatura and some entertaining gang backing vocals, yet highlighted by some high pitch pipes and skilled prowess, this rendition is much more convincing than the early version!

So don’t waste your time and do yourself a favor, go to the Steel Gallery Records mail order store and buy this “A Blot On The Landscape” on a silver platter… The physical edition is limited to 500 pieces only!