Customer Reviews

Agitation

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ok first off i am going to be totally blunt. If Metallica progressed to this after the Black Album, they would still be getting frequent spins in my cd player. But considering they did not, its few and far between. Many people consider Am I Blood to be nothing more than a more aggressive Metallica hybrid. Not true my friends. Though the vocalist does ring a slight Hetfield attempt, the music blasts through you like a tank on 11 tracks and the journey is not like a death metal clipping where every track is downtuned and heavy, nor is this a progressive release where everything is mindbinding and unpredictable. Am I Blood can be predicted at times, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Take tracks 2-5 as a good example. Examination is a straight edge song as is The Day Will Be Executed, however the latter possesses more melody and experimenting within its ranks. Segregated Holocaust is easily my pick for favorite song on the album as its gotten repeated spins for around a year now since i purchased the cd. Its a slow, fire breathing dragon that takes twists and turns like you wouldn't belive. Then Suicidal Solution resumes the aggression.

The man who claimed the lyrics to this album are unintelligent obviously never examined the book. Talk about intricate vocal patterns and thoughtful lyrics. You will listen to some of these songs and wonder how he is saying these intricate passages. Once again i turn to Segregated Holocaust for an example. While the chorus is rather bland and simple, the verses are far from it. This balance creates a perfect vocal song. Who ever said "exit light, enter night, take my hand, we're off to never neverland" was Einstien-worthy?

If you like Metallica and want to see which direction they would've taken had they become a more challanging, agressive band, check out Am I Blood and be amazed. This is powerful, potent stuff that will hit you hard then hit you again when you begin to think about it later. You then realize that these powerful anthems never really leave your head.

1998's MOST UNDERRATED METAL BAND - AM I BLOOD

The 1 star is solely because of Amazon's terrible rip of this album. The mp3 album is ripped with incorrect track lengths, so the first track is actually longer than Amazon's track... so it REALLY ends in the middle of track 2, and it's like this for the whole album.

Whatever you do, DON'T BUY THIS FROM AMAZON! It's broken and there's no way to fix it yourself without transcoding and ruining the quality.

when is the last time you've heard a band that was as good as Metallica. And Yes it is true that do resemble them quite remarkably even though they do seem to be a little more melodic. But anyway With Metallica edging closer and closer towards the awful light of alternative metal, we still need a band that can pick up where they left off after ...And Justice For All. I've listened already to 2 of their 3 albums, and i was impressed to say the least, their riffs are very heavy, and at times very soothing. I would say that if your looking for some good thrash look no further.

Apparently the second album from this curiously monikered mob from Finland, Agitation is an album of dependable metal that takes the listener along reasonably familiar garden paths and due to a number of factors arrives at a fou star destination.

The aspects of the brew that makes things so include a decent production job that manages to handle the sometimes wall of sound attributes of the band as well as a sense of mission here. These guys come across as being very much into...metal. And not a whole lot else. The number of one word song titles might have you wondering if this disc was going to be all grunge tinged but fear not, philosophically this album actually reminded me of Nevermores This Godless Endeavou - I mean have a gander at the song titles and you'll see some pretty heavy duty concepts, stuff like Suicidal Solution et al should leave you in no doubt that there will be nary a let up of consistent....metal.

As the album unfolds it becomes apparent that while Am I Blood - on this release at least - don't have any real X factor they do attack the task at hand with vigour and focus. And the somewhat industrially treated vocals do add a bit of an extra dimension to proceedings though that aspect of the album aside another musical point of reference for Agitation would be Metallica especially on track numbers nine and ten. And rather cleverly the group has avoided any desire for overly long song structures.

All up an album that didn't strike me as requiring many extra spins but which due to it's aforementioned focus, consistency and sense of mission is certainly deserving of a four star rating. Especially when you consider that despite what was probably a fairly minimal budget the knob job has sufficed to allow these smack down slabs of metal to get their point across. Worth a look perhaps for fans of Nevermore, 80's era Metallica or other bands of that ilk.

Hearing an album like Agitation, the second release from Finnish metal band Am I Blood, makes you wonder if this is what it would have sounded like if Metallica had remained a metal band in the second half of the 1990's. Much like Grip, Inc., Am I Blood's sound seems like the logical progression of what Metallica should have sounded like post-Black album.

I don't want to give the impression that Am I Blood is a Metallica knock-off either. Sure, the influence is noticeable, but show me a modern metal band that wasn't influenced by Metallica. Am I Blood has their own sound, but it's a sound that still feels familiar in the best possible way. There's a strong thrash metal base with plenty of aggressive elements, but at the same time there are cleaner (but still somewhat gruff) vocals and it's fairly accessible (and vaguely industrial). It's not where Metallica was, but rather where they should have gone.

Of course, we all know where Metallica decided to go. The real mystery is why a band like Am I Blood, which should have appealed to a wide array of disenchanted Metallica fans, went unnoticed. As of this writing, you can pick up a copy of Agitation for less than a buck. That just kills me. You can buy a completely overlooked, completely rocking, absolute monster of a heavy metal album for less than the price of a soft drink. What have you got to lose?

this band has alot of mind-blowing power.the songs are awesome.if you don't have it, buy it. you will not be sorry

This album is a revolution in the art of heavy metal. Each song has its own spirit in such a way that you can't believe that all the 11 songs are preformed by 1 band. If you lestened to the album you will know what I mean. Also, you can lesten to the new song of Am I blood at the death collection: death is just the begining 5. The song is called GIFT. Enjoy! The Scandinavian metal bands are crushing the American metal bands throne, beware Americans!

Great! More great Finnish metal! Finnish metal really is the best metal in the world. Stratovarius, Nightwish, Sentenced, Children Of Bodom, Amorphis, Sonata Arctica, HIM and Sinergy aren't the only ones....

Basically this is it. The sound is too mundane, though polished. Lyrics will not blow your mind and the music is not catchy. I bought it on sale for $3 and it still wasn't worth it.