Agnostic Front
Victim in Pain

THE REVIEW

Brushing off this record nowadays is like regretting growing up, far from a different world, better in some aspects but full of old memories that leave a bitter taste. At the same time, I imagine Agnostic Front, certainly richer, certainly full of satisfaction, but just as different, now aware that they can no longer play at CBGB, now part of a scene that has transformed into something completely different from the past. Today, even though they are active and full of good hopes, they have to make peace with the fact that they'll never manage to record an album like "Victim in Pain" again.

It's not that I hate all the music that seems to have come out since '89; it's just that I simply love music dictated by instinct. That "Victim in Pain" knew something about it.

1984, Miret screamed and Stigma didn't know how to keep time over a drum that was too fast, the instruments weren't tuned well together, and the songs touched on those four main notes as Hardcore demanded, without going beyond. This very incompetence and this way of asserting themselves in the music world gave the band a secure place among the founders of the New York punk scene.

Already strongly leaning towards a metal sound, which they definitively baptized with "Cause for Alarm," Agnostic Front distinguished themselves with abrupt tempo changes, epileptic solos, and songs played at stunning speed. The record lasts very little, ten songs played in quick succession and that's it.

Epochal tracks like "Blind Justice" in 2008 recall a world that's gone, where those fantastic acid sounds weren't crafted on mixers dozens of meters long, those distortions that unconsciously remind me of a swarm of wasps were the result of coincidence, the product of the situation, let's face it, the fruit of chance transcribed onto a record. That's what ruined the sound of Agnostic Front over time, professionalism, the quest for perfection, the loss of that alchemy created by luck.

I know for some of you this record is irrelevant, a hybrid that was never fully conceived, but this atmosphere, these songs like "Power," "Victim in Pain," "United and Strong" give me a unique charge, a charge that in days like these I feel less and less transcribed onto vinyl.

In my opinion (clearly biased), the album deserves five stars, but I have to admit that for some, that may be too many. Listen and decide for yourself.