antiMusic.com: Antigama - The Insolent Review

Antigama - The Insolent

by Matt Hensch

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Antigama has more flare than several of their grindcore counterparts, who have made spinning around with their thumbs up their ass the norm. The perfect dollop of cream on top of the band's blast-happy sundae that makes the Polish machine stand on its own, and which also seems to elevate Antigama's high levels of intensity, is the experimental dash lingering in the carnage. What Antigama did to the genetics of grindcore on "Meteor" gave birth to a beautiful atrocity, and it only makes sense that "The Insolent" would follow the same procedure. There is plenty to admire in how the group operates while diving headlong into the chaos which follows the subgenre ruled by Napalm Death and others, but the experimental elements are a wonderful touch.

Coming back to "Meteor" while exploring "The Insolent," it appears the group isn't undergoing an identity crisis. Corkscrewing riffs reminding this a**hole of Napalm Death and Pig Destroyer fire around the first two-thirds of the album, soaking the world over in blast beats and constant aggression. The manic twists and turns on the riffing spectrum give way to solid, unrelenting storms of malevolence lasting for just a minute or two, but no quality is sacrificed for what is familiar to Antigama. The vocals are a big surprise, acting as some of the most visceral shrieks this subgenre has to offer; I can't remember the last time I was affected by a vocal performance of this magnitude. The resemblance to Barney (Napalm Death, like I need to spell it out for you) makes me giddy.

The big divide between spastic grindcore bursts and longer experimental tunes seems to have been inherited from "Meteor," thankfully. "The Insolent" has a huge bulge of its total running time near its tail, capped off by the seven-minute stomping of the slow-moving "The Land of Monotony." It's funny, because the first six songs only rack up twelve minutes, or thereabouts, of the album's half-hour running time. "Sentenced to the Void" mutates to a punk-laden beat down akin to what could be considered fare from mid-paced Napalm Death, whereas "Out Beyond" turns up the strange with its Yes-styled keyboard solo and general atmospheric eccentricity. Grindcore conservatives (if there is such a thing) may scoff at these weird ones, but "The Insolent" makes another profound statement in Antigama's quest to induce total sensory overload.

Antigama - The Insolent
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