H.407 / Agathocles - For What? For Who?

H.407 are another of these new Polish death-metal bands that as soon as you hear them, you go berserk and fly into a frenzied, spastic fit of legs kicking and arms flailing, throwing windmill punches at your shadow and your neighbor's shadow (you hope that was just his shadow for his sake!) head jerking back and forth so hard that your glasses come flying off and now you can't see, and now you remember why old squares like yourself never go in the slam pit!

More up-tempo than Vader, not quite so cerebral as Anti-gamma, not guttural-grind as Squash Bowels, H.407 are a brand of polish death metal that fit somewhere between. There are two vocalists, we'll call them co-lead growlers, and the lyrics may be discerned but never learned by an English as first-, second -and third- language fellow such as myself, however, the intense emotions of outrage, anger, loathing and disenchantment transcend all language barriers. The music is all from their latest recording in May of 2005, very intense, very tight, and very aggressive.

The Agathocles portion of the split CD are all live tracks from a show they did in Tongerlo/Belgium in 1997. This is a recording which was obviously mic'd properly for the occasion, but for whatever reason was not released until now, some nine years later. This show was done at the time Agathocles released "Thanks For Your Hostility," and is an example of a great-sounding live hardcore performance.

As I write this review, I am not quite sure of the connection between the two bands, H.407 and Agathocles, and especially in light of the amount of time between the recordings, I am also unsure of the motivation for doing the split CD. However, the important thing is that this is a solid release and bound to find a place in any metal fan's collection.

H.407
1. it's not your problem
2. old lies
3. corrupted brain
4. we cannot cheat ourselves
5. war for the oil
6. concreted everything alive
7. grinded
8. they try to entrap us
9. u.s.a.
10. society
11. moneys failure
12. swindle (cover of DEZERTER)
13. expression

Agathocles
14. criminalisation of strange behaviour
15. knock back
16. trust? not me
17. thanks for your hostility
18. progress or stupidity
19. remember
20. consuming endoderme pus
21. cheers mankind cheers
22. life control
23. distraction
24. bigheaded bastards
25. kill your fucking idols

Apathic View Productions
Reviewer: mykke
Feb 26, 2009
Next review: H-George - Neurotic

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