Armageddon Label announces March 8th as the international release date for Agonista’s highly anticipated debut album, Grey and Dry, on vinyl LP format. Agonista also reveal the brand-new track „Abuse/Diffuse.“ Says vocalist/drummer Adrian Balderrama, „‚Abuse/Diffuse‘ is a song about domestic violence between partners and family members. It’s about how traditions and certain cultures and values lead to people staying in relationships – even though love has been replaced with abuse and violence – all to save the family or not to be a statistic of failure.“
Grey And Dry | Agonista | Armageddon Label (bandcamp.com)
Agonista is a band made up of longtime friends, featuring current and ex-members of Bumbklaat, DFMK, Run For Your Fucking Life, Spanakorzo, Sweep the Leg Johnny, Swing Kids, and many others. Their five-song EP Embusteros was released in 2018, and now they present their full-length debut with Grey and Dry.
Featuring 11 furious tracks recorded and mixed by Patrick Alexander at Cacho Estudio in Tijuana (Habak, Violencia, Abyssal) and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (Converge, Dropdead, Tragedy), Grey and Dry is a firestorm of righteous hardcore punk fury. Astutely says Daiki Kusuhara of Maximum Rocknroll, Agonista’s debut album explodes with the „full-driven destructive intensity of earlier crustcore – early ’90s Swedish hardcore from Extreme Noise Terror, Distrupt, and Uncurbed-style hardcore punk to the dark, gloomier side of ’90s-era Neurosis.“ With bilingual vocals in both Spanish and English, Grey and Dry „brings out the feeling of anger and the dark realities the status quo wants to shove underneath the rug,“ continues Kusuhara, „a combustion of fierce energy that will blow away any man-made borders.“
Corroborating that theme, Agonista state, „We live in an epoch when mainstream news outlets seemingly never cease to add kindling to the fires that inflame xenophobia, while elected officials make war cries for the U.S. to violate Mexico’s sovereignty. A sense of terror is provoked ad infinitum that hungry hordes of migrants and asylum seekers are spilling across a porous border, ready to rape, pillage, steal your job, and pump your kids full of fentanyl. It is during this time that transfronterizo band Agonista straddles the line, building bridges between Tijuana and San Diego. Calling both cities home, the band stands against the fear and hate mongering, while blasting out its own fierce brand of punk / hardcore / D-beat, tinged with cross-cultural influences from both sides of the border.“
