Art Against Agony for Progressive Metal

Art Against Agony (AAA) is an instrumental progressive Jazz/Metal formation, founded 2011 in Stuttgart, Germany.
AAA is an art project, not just a band: besides its experimental musical endeavours, the project focuses on photographic and videographic art, e.g. its ‚random-­‐art series’ on Youtube or its ‚ars-­‐gratia-­‐artis series’
photo-­‐blog, which can be examined on their website or on instagram and facebook.
All AAA members wear masks to facilitate not to focus on them but on the things they do. AAA considers subjective beings as highly irrelevant to the digitized world, and thus rejects the idea of subjectivity when it comes to art. Band members use pseudonyms for primary identification, but require to stay anonymous as private persons.

In 2014 AAA released the debut album "Three Short Stories", which was commented by the German press (here and here) as "a journey from a metal concert to an absinth jazz-bar"and therefore categorized as "prog-jazz-experimental-brainf**k metal". The album is available on all major online stores (including iTunes, Google Music) and can be streamed on YouTube.
On February 6th 2016 AAA released its second album "The Difference Between a Duck and a Lobster", followed by extensive touring through Europe and Russia in spring and summer. The album is also available on all major online stores and is being streamed on YouTube.

Discography:

Three Short Stories (2014)

1     On Stasis and Motion
1.1  Etry lvel (5:33)
1.2  Pelagius | Ileven (4:55)
1.3  Seasons (4:21)
1.4  Innocent People don’t Run (4:46)
1.5  Hope and Disgust (1:11)

2      The Woman in the Red Dress
2.1  Liberty (5:01)
2.2  Lily and E. (3:23)
2.3  Paisley (2:49)
2.4  Copec! (3:39)
2.5  Silence in Menzoberranzan (4:31)

3      Smiles of Alien Entities
3.1  7h till Dawn (2:26)
3.2  Fitch (f**king Bitch) (3:52)
3.3  Krahdrahcn (5:32)
3.4  Nyarlathotep (8:13)
3.5  Pisha (5:48)

[bonus] Track5 (6:08)

[bonus] Magilla | Trench (5:22)

the_sorcerer: lead guitar, piano
the_machinist: rhythm guitar
the_harlequin: bass guitar
the_glasses: drums, percussion


The Difference between a Duck and a Lobster (2016)

1   The_duck
2   Fitches Pulled at Random
3   L.A. Suite - Sunset Blvd / Peatloaf Ave
4   Abysmal Gale
5   Batteries are for Flashlights, not for Pickups
6   Nacre Fugue
7   Tiôbe
8   BBQ
9   Hulullúlulu
10 Gunseng!
11 The_lobster

[bonus] Slash the Sky to Spread the Sun
[bonus] Elevetor Jump Menu Theme
[bonus] Swissable

Bonus tracks available only on the Limited Edition CD

the_sorcerer (lead_guitar, philosophy)
the_machinist (rhythm_guitar)
the_surgeon (piano)
the_heretic (bass guitar, counterpoint)
the_malkavian (drums)
the_architect (photography)
the_void (graphic/web design)
the_harlequin (merch)
the_glasses (japan_supervisor)


The band has certainly a progressive sound, and should easily belong to the archive.
I recommend it for Progressive Metal, although this may be discussed.

Thank you for your prompt note!

A review of AAA's latest album (in German) by Falk Wehmeier

https://tiefenlausch.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/art-against-agony-the-difference-between-a-duck-and-a-lobster/

and translation:

(Jazz/Metal) "the difference between a duck and a lobster" is already out for five months now, but better now than never: Here it is, the well deserved praise for some intelligent music, which is on the one hand somewhere located between Jazz and Metal, but on the other hand not to be titled with "Fusion". ART AGAINST AGONY just cover way too many genres to be confined into these small boxes.

How about some examples?

"the_duck", the first song in the record, could also be possibly found on a more tame "Algorithm" release, while the second song "Fitches Pulled at Random" does not only bear the "Meshuggah" reference in its title - by the way, attentive followers of the band will have recognized the "Fitch" neologism, created by the band on their first album "three short stories" - "Abysmal Gale" even comes up with some severe blastbeats.

"Batteries are for Flashlights, not for Pickups" reduces both pentatonics and the blues to absurdity, and the "Nacre Fugue" sounds like a Panzerballett-Version of baroque Bach-music. (by the way, Panzerballett lead guitarist Jan Zehrfeld is featured as a guest guitarist on "Fitches Pulled at Random"!)

The band's music is still heavily rooted rooted in the Djent-movement, however, these elements now take a back seat on the new album.

The most impressive thing about ART AGAINST AGONY - despite all musical brainf**ks - is that the project can maintain its musical integrity over such a variety of different instrumental pieces.

This is because ART AGAINST AGONY is telling stories with their music, which they now display even more impressively than on their first album 'three short stories'.

Their music is not easy listening, thats for sure, but one may still access their musical stories in a very easy and comfortable way, because the strange momentum of the music will very often be revealed only after closer inspection, which intensifies the effect of the music even more.

"the difference between a duck and a lobster" - as far as you may dare to say about this "style" of music - is the logical follow up to "three short stories" and shows the impressive development of a band, which should have even deserved a lot more praise, yet will probably never get it due to their voluminous approach to art.

However, I highly recommend both their new and their old album to everybody who is already delighted by bands like Meshuggah, Panzerballett and Schizofrantik. If you are still looking for more, you may want to check out their Bandcamp or Youtube and sample their music:

www.youtube.com/artagainstagony

www.artagainstagony.bandcamp.com

by Falk Wehmeier

Edited by mangoo - July 27 2016 at 03:37

They have been added to the site

Great news! Thanks to the PA team

By the way, they have recently published the trailer of their new EP, "The forgotten story":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlDpexJXJ1I

and released the first song out of it (thumbs up for the Italian name ) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDKWKfJMzQk