Album Review: Blighted Eye - Agony's Bespoke
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
Trigger warnings: sexual assault
“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.” – Cormac McCarthy, in “Blood Meridian”
I kept thinking of another album while listening to “Agony's Bespoke”; specifically “Hymn to the Woeful Hearts” by Indonesian black metal outfit Pure Wrath. That album wove a haunting, gaunt-eyed tale of loss and bitterness concerning the mother of a murdered child rendered through a stunning work of deeply impassioned extreme metal that remains in my thoughts to this day. Both narratively and sonically, it bears more than a passing resemblance to “Agony’s Bespoke”, even if Blighted Eye lean more on their deathly inclinations than their blackened ones. It’s a broad, sweeping work thick with atmosphere at points envenomed, at points tragic, at points mordant, but always evocative. Shards and fragments from influences across the spectrum from Opeth to the plaintive melodicism of Mournful Congregation buck and claw to the surface throughout, a lustrous edge of pure black steel girding. While I personally prefer the bleak stamp of tracks like “The Wounded” or the stunning “Pallid”, with it’s tar-black Deathspell Omega flurry introduction into a slower, crowbar-esque trudging riff dripping with malice and loathing, all tracks bear copious strengths.
The technical precision on display is impressive to say the least, not just in terms of the exceptional solo work (magnificent though it is) but also the composition and arrangement of the songs themselves. This is a long album composed of lengthy songs, yet it never feels its duration. Songs transition and morph gracefully from beginning to end; “A Feast for Worms” for one example among many shifts dynamically, building and releasing tension, slipping from one moment to another with a practised ease before crushing you underheel with some of the deepest, most guttural vocals on the album accompanied by a shambling, sinister zombie of a riff pawing with split nails for your jugular. In truth I could say the same of virtually any song on here. Do you realise how astounding that is?
Everything things band does, it does with a veteran, practiced ease. “A Reverent Stillness” layers its introduction, building up to a riotous, cathartic crescendo at the 2.12 mark, only to thud into a punchy body blow of a death metal riff. It’s an epic, mostly mid paced gallop laden fusion of delicate, gorgeous melodies, flowing into harsher if no less epic fast sections with virtuoso solo work to boot. The work the rhythm section does to link these disparate sections into cohesive wholes is masterful, restrained enough so as to not overpower the exceptional lead work yet propulsive, varied and elaborate, a rock-solid base for the lead work to dance upon. I’m not entirely sold on the clean vocals, though they’re neither plentiful nor objectionable enough to form anything so substantial as an actual complaint. Similarly, the instrumental “Nightingale” adds little in comparison to the work that surrounds it. That said – it’s a touch over a minute long. Am I to begrudge an hour long work a minute of relative filler?
That “Agony’s Bespoke” is inspired by “The Nightingale” – a movie notable for, amongst other things, it’s depictions of rape, violence, and racism – should hint at the bleakness of the content within. Pain is an integral part of the human condition. Nothing too controversial there. However, metal and its relationship to pain is a more complex discussion. Especially in the more extreme reaches of the genre suffering is often played for simple shock value, heinous grotesqueries we would shudder to think of if applied to those we love given no especial notice. Consider any number of death metal releases that toy with rape as subject matter, as though the act itself is of no serious consequence as opposed to an atrocious violation of another person. The justification typically has it that while the sentiment might be more graphic than Iron Maiden’s were when they sang “you’ll die as you lived in a flash of the blade”, ultimately they’re exactly as hollow. These are, the argument goes, just stories. Nonetheless, there’s a queasy sense of voyeurism to some metal lyrics; one gets the disquieting sense that some of this “it’s not real” apologia is mere cover for very real unhealthy attitudes towards other people. Any way that I slice it, there is something...uniquely detestable about sexual violence that makes it something I’m never comfortable with being trivialised for the sake of entertainment. I don’t concede this conviction to exist in opposition to the firm belief that artists should be able to make a song of whatever they please, but nonetheless i think it is worth bearing in mind that the acts described in songs we metalheads often blast with unrepentant fervour are not ones that should be taken with a lighthearted flippancy. In that sense at least, for however unpalatable the themes, inspirations and subject matter of “Agony’s Bespoke” are, it is least laudable that it treats human pain with appropriate gravity.
The determinist would argue that, in the absence of free will, all creation is more aptly viewed as some gigantic clockwork mechanism, infinitesimal in complexity. All that was, is, and shall be is contained within this mechanism, grind forth as it does with grim inevitability. Seen such, all apparent permutations of existence are whittled down to this singular path, your every step foreordained the moment our universe flared into being. Pain, in all its vicious guises, is woven into reality, as immutable as time itself. Those evils that befall you are as they would always be, you volition an illusion, your agency ultimately non-existent. It’s a sobering reflection, but if it is one that you would partake in, you could ask for no better companion than “Agony’s Bespoke”.
