Antigama—Resonance (2007)

Details

Recorded and mixed at Studio X, Olsztyn, Poland in December 2006. Recorded and mixed by Szymon Czech and mastered at Elephant Studio by Szymon Czech. All songs written by Antigama. Words and electronic sequences written by Lukasz Myszkowski. Released in May 2007 on Relapse Records.

Band

Lukasz Myszkowski (Vocals)
Krzysztof Bentkowski (Drums)
Sebastian Rokicki (Guitar)
Michał Pietrasik (Bass)

Tracks

Pursuit
Seismic report
Ecstasy
Neutral balance
Order
Pending
Remembering nothing
Barbapapex
Psychonaut
No
After
By and by
Shymrok
Types of waste
Asylum
Unreachable
Stars

Review

A shorter review of this album might read something like: for fans of Order of the Leech-era Napalm Death hijacked by someone playing utterly random jazz (if that’s not a tautology) on an electric piano on track 8, and on guitar on track 13.

A longer review might just say the same thing but in a more drawn out way. So here goes…

When I first played this album this album I had two thoughts. The first was immediate relief that I’d found another album that I liked. The second was “Wow! They sound incredibly like Napalm Death”.

Of course, Napalm Death are the godfathers of grindcore so it is perhaps inevitable that you can hear an influence or two. But I’ve just been playing Antigama‘s Resonance and Napalm Death‘s Order of the Leech (2002) back to back, and on random play, and it’s remarkable just how hard it is to tell them apart.

If anything the production on Resonance is much better. It has a much crisper sound, it’s a less muddy sound.

Not everything is played at a hundred miles per hour, though. “Psychonaut” (track 9) is a heavy, slowed-down affair; almost doom metal in places. It doesn’t quite have the soul of Down but it’s getting there. It’s like the sound of a grindcore band being played deep underground (undergroundcore?).

And then there are two completely random sounding experimental tracks, “Barbapapex” at track 8 and “Shymrok” at track 13. “Barbapapex” reminds me of the silliness at the end of the Galactic Cowboys‘ song “Speak to Me” from their 1991 self-titled, debut album, where someone reads out a school dinner menu which ends, “…and for the Catholic students: FISH!”

“Shymrok” has a more Soulfly feel, or even like something from Andreas Kisser (Sepultura)’s solo album Hubris (2009).

Conclusion

For this project, each week I try to listen to my album-of-the-week at least once a day. My Last.fm stats are revealing:

Antigama — 45 tracks played
Napalm Death — 43 tracks played

I really like the early-/mid-2000s era Napalm Death so this hasn’t been a difficult week to listen. I now even have this album on my phone to listen to in bed and, again, that has to reveal something.

Review score: 85%

Video

Here’s the undergroundcore track 9: “Psychonaut”