THE AGONY SCENE, Get Damned (2007, Century Media)

The skull:
This guy is damned alright: damned to a face full of chopsticks and half a mouth full of summer teeth. He deserves it, too, for the crime of ripping off Pushead. Die young and leave a big dumb skull. Really big, and really dumb. The CD came packaged in a slipcase that was all text, except for a cutout that exposed the coffin graffiti on the skull’s forehead. Amusingly, fans of the band seem to think this was some kind of censorship, and not a commercial compromise with the record label, who weren’t exactly thrilled by the notion of a cover without the band name or title. But, you wouldn’t listen to a band like this if you weren’t so sure that people just don’t get you, man.

The music:
Straight up metalcore, which is to say watered-down post-Machine Head pseudothrash with herniated tough guy bellowing, The Agony Scene are more or less exactly as boring as every other metalcore band. Their slower tunes approach deathrock, another godforsaken subgenre of last resort. To their credit, they don’t generally stoop to crooning sensitive lyrics about their sadness in the choruses, preferring to yell at all times about lord knows what. Probably something about how their shift manager is such a dick.
— Friar Johnsen