18. Agent Fresco – Destrier (2015) 
An album by this band should have been expected at this point. They are one of my favourite discoveries of the last couple of years and I have made it a habit to pimp this band in any and every roulette am I in. I have sent my favourite track
See Hell a bunch of times, and before the full album came out, I resorted to the album’s first single
Dark Water. Before that, I would send their debut album’s title-track. Even though ‘Destrier’ is only this Icelandic band’s second album, they are certainly going places, having played not only numerous metal and prog festivals, but also being among the country’s best selling artists. As far as I’m concerned, that’s well-deserved.
Agent Fresco’s music is very hard to categorise. They are not the band you would expect at metal festivals like ProgPower Europe and Euroblast, yet they were there regardless and at ProgPower Europe 2015 they blew everyone away. Basically, the only thing that’s metal about this band is the awesome rhythmic changes they do, the fact that the guitarist uses distortion to some extent (which of course isn’t exclusive to metal) and the singer screams (or rather; shouts very loudly) occasionally. Considering the fact that this album’s conception came from an incident the singer had after being beaten up and feeling angry for a long time, it’s surprising that the amount of songs he screams in on this album is far less that on their debut, namely just one.
As said before, it’s hard to classify this band, but I’ve seen them labeled as ‘progressive indie rock’, a description that seems fitting. A song like
Angst though, would be far too heavy for that description. Being the aforementioned only track singer Arnor Dan screams on, it’s almost like the climax of the album. Built on an anti-rhythmic breakdown, the song explodes into an all-enclosing wall of sound around halfway. It’s by far the shortest song on the album, but considering its explosiveness in an otherwise quite peaceful record, it surely has its impact.
So what does this band sound like? They are mostly guitar driven, but use piano and synthesisers occasionally. Most of the interesting stuff they do have either got to with weird sounds (as in the breakdown-part in title-track
Destrier, among the most interesting parts on the album sonically), or with weird rhythmic changes (the ending to
The Autumn Red). The band experiments a lot with different styles and sounds and is not afraid to try anything new, even stuff that wouldn’t usually have its places in the music they write. That said, there is probably no other band that sounds like Agent Fresco, so in that sense they truly have a unique style they exploit on this record, even more so than on their debut-album. What makes this band sound the way they do, is probably mostly due to the singer’s voice. I can imagine that his voice might turn you off, but I believe it actually it’s the music very well and is a great addition to the amazing underlying stuff the rest of the band does.
The three singles the band released prior to the release of this record,
Dark Water,
See Hell &
Wait for Me (and later,
Howls) are actually a very good show-case of the stuff this band does. This record has everything, from very heavy (
Angst), to very atmospheric (
Bemoan,
Death Rattle) to everything in between. I suggest you try out the aforementioned singles and decide whether this is for you. It’s an enjoyable ride and without a doubt my favourite record from 2015.
Favourite song: See Hell
Other songs worth checking out: Angst, The Autumn Red, Wait For Me
Other stuff by this band: So far, Agent Fresco have only released two albums. Their first one, titled ‘A Long Time Listening’ is almost as good as this one and contains some tunes that are easily better than the weaker tunes on ‘Destrier’. It’s slightly heavier and contains more screams, but if you like this one, their first should be right up your alley as well.
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