Aghast : if you are aghast, you are filled with horror and surprise. 

While she watched, aghast, his eyes glazed over as his life flowed away.

Aghast come from Tarbes, in the southwest of France and their music is one of the best emocore production ever served in my ear. They develop on ‘Polaroid’ an abrasive style which takes after At the Drive-In, Refused, Fugazi (and Myra Lee). This EP is a twenty minutes long energic drive that urges you to fasten your seat belt right from the beginning.. ‘Couple hors la loi’ efficaciously chains up melodic violent emo with almost hardcore riffs while the singer screams his lines out without being ridiculous doing it. ‘Deux ex machina’ works on the same pattern with a kind of punk background and talented vocal harmonies. ‘Outsatation’ is a more ‘simple’ song than the first two, functioning on a heady riff that is tortured during 2:30. The production effect on the guitar at the end is not really tasteful. ‘Phonographie’ is too short too be fully appreciated, just like the instrumental ‘(…)’ that sounds like an unfinished work with its awful fade out that longs on the last third of the song to leave the drums alone eventually. ‘Prana’ thankfully comes back to the precipitation of the first tracks, adding an unexpected clean melodious guitar bridge.

Generally speaking, Aghast’s sound is refreshingly rough and the comparison with their elder brothers is no disgrace. I have not been so fucked up listening a record since AC/DC live ‘If you want blood’ in 1978, and I advise you dear readers to try to grasp a copy of those two.

-Angus (happy 39) Anderson

/apr 1st 2003/