The Agonist - Prisoners

The Agonist sound like just the band for me. A metalcore band featuring a female singer most famous for her stint on Canadian Idol. Yeah, that's the same thing as American Idol except on ice.

Prisoners is their third album released on Century Media Records. At 11 songs and 58 minutes long this is a long listen. Right away I can tell you that this is entirely too long. The shocking part is that it isn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. This may have even been labeled incorrectly as metalcore. I don't hear the non-stop breakdowns and bland riffs. Alissa White-Gluz provides the vocals and while I am not entirely fond of the timing of some of her changes to clean vocals, it sounds way better than some dude trying to sing. She's clearly got the pipes to be a traditional singer and surprisingly doesn't sound bad doing "metal growls".

I feel I should absolutely hate this. I don't think it is incredibly good, but I can't say it's bad. The guitar work by Danny Marino (lol) and Pascal Jobin is on par with the middle of the pack metal bands out there today. The solos and riffs aren't mindblowing, but are done well and fit the music perfectly. The drums are pretty satisfactory and only at times breakthrough the vocals and guitars to catch your attention. The bass? I couldn't tell you, I'm sure its there, but I don't hear it.

Prisoners is technical, melodic and at times brutal and catchy, but overall it's pretty unmemorable. White-Gluz' vocals will probably stick with you for the novelty, but ultimately this will be an hour you will forget. I was expecting much worse, so I'm okay with what it is.

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