Agathocles / シカバネ (Shikabane) – Split 7″ (1997)

September 30, 2012

A quick note on looking back at this blog’s beginnings: I realise how harsh I was towards Agathocles in some posts. Whilst I do tire of them constantly re-hashing the same old stuff over and over in different shitty recordings, they are an excellent grindcore band (yes, grindcore!) and when they actually make original material it is usually very good. Not to mention they are fucking excellent live!

I picked this 7″ up from Nic’s Bones Brigade stall on the Wormrot UK tour. It was staring me in the face and was the only thing in the 7″ pile that really tickled my fancy. I had a sneaky peek inside and didn’t recognise any of the tracks as being the usual 30 or so that are re-recorded again and again for splits so I took a risk and slung ol’ Nic three quid and went home. What I got was one of a 1000 repressed with a blue cover and a red disc. Original pressings (also 1000 pieces) have a black cover and a transparent orange vinyl. All versions were put out in 1997 by Keloid Records. 

Shikabane are fucking excellent grindcore and I will be checking these guys out more when I get some time! Japanese hypergrind anyone? Think Carcass Grinder but not as awful. Think Unholy Grave but happier and less noisecore. It reminds me greatly actually of a band I was meant to split with before called Infiltro, but the project fell apart. Sounds very similar. Excellent grind anyway, and the drum sound is brilliant. Nice bright ping ping snares all round!

Agathocles have original tracks here, so once I got over my minor heart attack I dropped the needle to the wax and enjoyed. Fucking bliss! Seriously guys, you should do this more often! Ha ha. All jokes aside, it’s nice and upbeat “mince” from AGx, but with Jan’s usual growls / shifts replaced with yelps and odd laughing sounds. Excellent and entertaining lyrics as usual. I will say that the AGx side is over way too quickly though. Nevermind! That means I’ll just have to collect more 7″s, right guys?