Agabas – Hard Anger
Release Date: 13th June 2025
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Deathjazz, Deathjazz, Deathjazz (It’s like Beetlejuice, say it 3 times and Agabas appears!!)
FFO: Kvelertak, Dizzy Gillespie, The Callous Daoboys, John Coltrane, EYES.
Review By: John Newlands
Ok, folks, imagine this completely made-up scenario with me.
Six Norwegian guys from Trondheim sitting in a room on metal folding chairs arranged in a circle, staring at one another. They are adorned with 1979s style floral shirts, some have long curly hair, there are beards, even the odd moustache. No flares tonight, though, they mean business. They drink Alde cider from Hadanger, Dahls pils is consumed in abundance, who knows, perhaps a bottle of over-priced orange wine from the Vinmonopolet sipped carefully from an old IKEA Pokal glass while a cigarette burns lazily in the corner.
This is Agabas, they play music. That music fuses heavy metal, death metal, prog metal, jazz, black metal, math metal, metal metal, liquid metal, transition metals and some other metal stuff all together like a big metal smoothie.
Surprisingly, despite having lots of hair, there is no hair-metal involved, which, in its own way, is interesting.
Agabas are trying to coin a term for their new musical genre.
They take it in turns with an offering.
Oskar: “Metal jazz-death??”
Nei, dette er kjempedårlig!!!!!!
Sondre: “Death jazz-metal?”
Nei…du, vi må har noen med litt mer….»Zip»!!!
Bjørn: Metal death prog jazz?
“Fy Faen Bjørn….NEI!!!”
The evening continues as such.
Fast-forward to the next morning. Agabas were fruitless in coming up with a catchy “genre” for their music. The night before ended in a blur of jazz and metal and soiled underwear.
They all look at one another, slightly disgusted, perplexed and very hungover. They all have something scribbled on their foreheads in Sharpie marker (other marker types are available). WTF is that word?!?!
Deathjazz!!!
Perfect!!!!! They cry in unison.
Bjørn : «Hva skal hvor neste album heter da?»
All except from Bjørn groan.
A saxophone moans in the distance. A cow farts near a fjord. All is calm.
Scene fade out.
Well, I’ll tell you what, let’s get back to reality. The new (third album) from Agabas is called Hard Anger, and it fucking rips harder than an old hippy on a bong!!
Agabas have managed to make what on paper really shouldn’t work, in-fact, actually works very well indeed. Hard Anger is a chaotic blend of de-tuned guitars, with ferocious vocals and effects laden saxophone that fuses, for the most part, death metal and jazz. Production on the release is fantastic, with clear articulation on all instruments.
We can’t talk about deathjazz without mentioning the saxophone. The sax has seen quite a lot of use in recent years within metal. White Ward integrated it into their crooning, noir soaked moody black metal 2019 release Love Exchange Failure and technical death metal leaders, Rivers Of Nihil, have been using it for years. However, Agabas integrate the instrument into metal in a completely different way. Here it is centre stage, it is like the 3rd guitar that is driving the tracks forward, providing the hooks and solos along with the guitars. Despite all the effects, it is still unmistakably saxophone and it’s fantastic.
Hard Anger goes hard from the get-go, offering catchy riffs and licks that worm their way into the listener’s ear and make you want to listen again and again and again. I’ve listened to this album back to back so many times now, and on each listen I hear something new, or get a vibe or flourish of another band or genre. Sometimes it’s the chugging guitar and vocal cadence of Pantera, the bounce of some nu-metal or the catchiness of Norwegian Black’n’Roll stalwarts Kvelertak. These guys aren’t ripping folk off, just sampling flavours and mixing it together into the deathjazz Agabas sound.
Each and every time I listen to Hard Anger, I have an absolute blast, and I’m sure you will too. Go and check it out, this LP is a super fun release and really worth a listen.
Their live show is also great, if they are touring near you, try to catch them. I saw them last Autumn supporting Kvelertak, and they were fantastic, and I’m looking forward to their return to Bergen in August this year.
Skål.
(4.5 / 5)
