Review by Fernando on December 31, 2023.

Industrial metal is an odd subgenre within metal because it’s a style that’s very dynamic and malleable but it's also very overwhelming, as the various sonic signifiers of industrial music are very hard to miss. Harsh noise, blaring synths, metallic percussion, sampling and post-production trickery, so many bands tend to get very creative to avoid or in some cases purposefully make their sound dated, in the sense they want to evoke a specific vibe, be it 80’s cyberpunk, or a more timeless sense of apocalyptic dread.

I say this because of today’s band (and my last review of 2023) Agima Sun, a Polish industrial metal band that are making themselves known with their debut album Ultra Fiction. The band is a practically brand new, and while I describe them as industrial metal, and they do fit the bill, they’re also a bunch of other things and more. My one criticism of the album is how overwhelming and all over the place the music is, as the band feature everything from alternative, industrial, avant-garde and even jazz and glitchcore. In some areas the music could very easily work as a soundtrack for a sci-fi movie or game.

However, while the album is a bit much to take in one go, this is by no means bad, far from it, this is one of the most surprising albums of the year, and a very welcomed change of space from my usual wheelhouse within extreme metal. My favorite aspect of the record and what I connected to the most is the band’s command of atmosphere. The song ‘Ghost Assembly’ is a mid-paced dirge with synths, and some very well done sludgy riffs and wailing growls, and this is the song I recommend checking out, but I still recommend hearing the record from front to back.

The individual performances are also excellent and despite how many pieces the album has, the band do a good job of making sense of it all, and not just through their individual performances but as a unit, no instrument, not even the effects and synths are wasted and everything serves a purpose for the benefit of the album. Furthermore the greatest achievement of this record is how it sounds modern, but not in a “of it’s time” way. The production is very crisp and professional, as you can clearly hear all the instruments and more subtle details with the samples and the synths, however the synths sound paradoxically old, as they evoke both 80’s dark synth-pop, 90’s rave music and Y2K techno and never in a way that’s haphazard or thrown together, in fact, I would recommend this record to anyone that’s sick of the whole hyperpop and vaporwave trends, as this record successfully incorporates disparate elements of electronic music into metal without sacrificing cohesion and taking it very seriously to boot. And at 40 minutes flat, this is an extremely well paced and composed record, it neither rushes nor it drags.

Overall, Agima Sun are one of the most interesting surprises I came across in 2023. Its a record that gains its strengths from contradictions, its metal, but also alternative, it sounds modern, but not dated and it features signifiers from many different decades, it’s slathered with digital and electronic elements, but it’s not messy or cobbled together, and more importantly, it sounds like a band playing together and on the same wavelength. This could’ve easily come across as some bedroom project with emulated instruments, but it isn’t, and that’s what makes it great. Agima Sun truly earned their own descriptor of “post-apocalyptic avant-garde metal”.

Best songs: 'Ghost Assembly', 'Stormlords Hex', 'Illusion City'

Rating: 8 out of 10