Album Review: Agnostic Front - Echoes In Eternity
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
The autumn of 2025 seems to be turning into a bumper time for the legacy bands of the New York Hardcore scene. We’ve already had the glorious return of Biohazard and their tenth album, Divided We Fall, turning the clock back to the early Nineties, and now we get the Godfathers of Hardcore themselves, Agnostic Front, serving up their first new record since 2019’s Get Loud.
Echoes in Eternity is twenty-seven minutes of Agnostic Front doing what they do best. It’s a fifteen-track reminder to the upstarts who think they can crash in and steal the crown, that age and health will not stop this musical juggernaut.
From their foundation in 1982, mainstays Roger Miret and Vinnie Stigma have always been true to the Hardcore cause, developing Agnostic’s style from the first-wave NYHC through the more aggressive sounds of the Crossover influences.
No matter their evolving sound, the Front have never lost the connection with the ongoing struggles of modern urban life and, as with every Agnostic Front release, it’s a subject matter that dominates Echoes in Eternity.
From the outset, it’s an album steeped in the band’s signature sound. Way of War drops the listener into the combat zone with little time to prepare. Gang vocals and Roger’s unmistakeable voice serving as best they can to orientate you; Evolution of Madness charges and Obey is a call to reject the not-so subtle attempts at population control rife in the current age.
You Say looks to more rhythmic stomp and the Hardcore stylings of Shots Fired includes some light-touch percussion from the band’s newest member, one-time Sworn Enemy and Suicide City sticksman, Danny Lamagna.
Guitarists Vinnie and Craig Silverman build those big thrashing riffs across the likes of Tears for Everyone, which includes some of Echoes…’ sickest soloing; the slower tempos of Eyes Open Wide and Turn Up the Volume’s more metallic progression which insists on ramming its foot to the floor for the closing passages. Perhaps the most unexpected, reduced tempo tune here is Divided, coming with an edgy guitar sound it’s very much an outlier in what Agnostic Front do, but demonstrates that even a band this deep into their careers still have the desire to experiment.
At the same time, Roger, Vinnie and company still remember their roots on the punchy punk of Sunday Matinee and the Victim in Pain-feel to the short, sharp, shock of Art of Silence’s pure hardcore rage. As balance to those, Matter of Life and Death leans into the urban sound of the streets, incorporating hip-hop rhythms and recruiting Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC fame for backing vocals.
If someone asked me to define Agnostic Front I would direct them to listen to Hell to Pay, an unstoppable charger that gets into your face and is as abrasive as its “fuck around and find out” lyric suggests; I’d also point them toward Skip the Trail’s bouncing rhythms and infectious beats. Anthemic, upbeat and unbelievably danceable, this one seems custom-build for maximum pit activity.
Echoes in Eternity is Agnostic Front’s Reigning Phoenix Music’s debut and is a reminder that the fire still burns brightly and passionately in the band. Hopes and prayers are with Roger that the health scare of 2021 is now behind him and we can look forward to many more scathing reports of the utter state of the world in the future. Hardcore Lives!
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