How does “Garbage Collapse Suffocation” sound to you? Or “Skinhunter Kill”? Does it sound like brutal death metal tracks to you? It sure does to me. The Italian death metal band Antagonism has just released their first full length album, and I am not fooling around when I say that they are a couple of pissed off guidos.

The sound is so aggressive and brutal that it can cause a serious headache. The album sets off with “Skinhunter Kill”, which sets the torch for the entire album. The guitar riffs are complex and very rough. The bass is very aggressive and in your face. The vocals are pissed off and a mix of growling and shrieking (in a non black metal way, that is). The drumbeats are fast and there is a quite great amount of double pedal in each track.

The lyrical themes are very political. Themes such as pollution, political corruption and criticism of contemporary society are brought up in the lyrics, but that does not really matter, because you cannot hear one word of what Marco Radosevich is yelling anyways. What does matter is the aggressive sound on the album that makes you want to smash cars with clubs whilst pulling out your own hair. The brutal aggression is overwhelming.

The cover of the album Digging Past Sounds is not really that amazing. It is just a photography of a machine digging its way through some old thrash. I think they took the title of the album a bit too literal when they decided to make this cover. I do not find this album cover convincing at all. I also find that the music on this album lacks variety. Each track is too predictable, and it is hard to tell one number from another, because the music is an aggressive mess of yelling and slamming.

Sadly, this Antagonism album does not stand out from all the other brutal death metal albums. Actually, I would say that this is very mediocre. I find it listenable, but I do not find any real pleasure in listening to it, because it is not that fantastic. The riffs are ok, but not amazing. The vocals are quite mediocre. The drumming is ok as well, but as said before in this review, not fantastic. The only thing outstanding thing I noted is that the bass player is quite skilled. There are some really cool bass riffs on tracks such as “G-hate”. This album could have been very good if there had been progressive elements and some variety. To me it is just a big mess of random tunes.

www.myspace.com/antagonismband