Once Only Imagined

Much has been made of the uphill battle fought by women as they try to make some inroads into the overwhelmingly macho world of heavy metal, and the good news is that there are ever more female metal heads joining bands and leaving their mark on par with the boys. The bad news is that progress in this arena is still painfully slow (although, if you were there in the non-spandex '80s, you know it's been a lot worse!) and for all the growing acceptance among even the most meat-headed headbangers, not all women in metal are necessarily helping their cause. Case in point, vocalist Alissa White-Gluz, of Montreal's Agonist, whose formidable singing, screeching and growling talents can't convey her eco-friendly lyrical preoccupations (and would prove darn near impossible to pull off live), nor excuse her group's competent but imminently forgettable brand of metallic deathcore. As profiled on their 2007 debut, Once Only Imagined, (rush-recorded shortly after the band's inception) Agonist's music is predictably stacked with forceful, down-tuned riffs, blunt-force breakdowns, dissonant squeals, and soaring melodies; all of them stale building blocks, the likes of which discerning metal fans have had more than their fill of, this late into the '00s. By the time the band tacks on a truly ear-catching piano coda to "Business Suits and Combat Boots," and comes up with semi-distinctive counterpoint melodies for album closer "Forget Tomorrow," most listeners will likely have moved onto something else. Unless they have an interest in White-Gluz's fetching good looks, that is, but that's hardly how she'd want to gain metallic acceptance, wouldn't you think? And in any event, like the aforementioned issue of her "green" lyrics, it all comes off feeling like diversionary tactics to cover up the album's abundant deficiencies — better luck next time.