Antagonist

With the fast-rising commercial fortunes of American metalcore bands like Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall, Germany's equally vibrant parallel scene (which, many claim, showed the Americans the way in the first place) gets increasingly fewer lines in print. But among the Teutonic bands still making waves in the mid-2000s, Nordhausen's Maroon deserve special mention for their impact on the style, beginning with their 2002 debut, Antagonist. Though perhaps not as immediately accessible or musically flashy as many of its competitors, Antagonist proves just as effective in its delivery thanks to the music's raw emotional power. Things like clinical execution, guitar solos, and soaring melodic vocals are left on the cutting room floor, but vocalist Andre Moraweck still gets the message across in his own, brutishly effective way, while his bandmates forcefully wring out serpentine melodies, thrashing riffs, and frenetic percussion behind him. Yet the real interesting thing about Maroon is that like fellow German bands Heaven Shall Burn and Caliban, they profess veganism and animal rights above all other causes, laying out the apocalyptic events described in tracks like "The Beginning of the End," "An End Like This," and "Beneath the Ashes" squarely in the hands of a vengeful Mother Nature — not manmade gods or devils. Along with the even more graphic lyrics detailing ritual animal slaughter in "Shadows of Vengeance" and the colossal album highlight "Stillborn," Maroon's subtlety-free approach leaves little to the imagination, but for listeners willing to accept indoctrination, "Still Believe in What Has Fallen Apart" offers an excellent crash course in Straight Edge 101. And that's the key to Maroon's first album: it offers listeners the metalcore genre's core strengths, if not its more popular latter-day triumphs.