#deathjazz

Band 1: Agabas

Genre: Deathjazz

For those familiar with metal subgenres, 'deathjazz' sounds like exactly what you'd expect, which is a mix of death metal and jazz. Have you ever listened to a metal song and thought 'nice guttural vocals, not enough saxophone'? Probably not, but it works incredibly well. I'd describe the general use of saxophone as sounds of brutal saxophone murder (/pos) - as a grade 8 saxophone player myself, some of the sounds I hear produced in agabas's discography genuinely leave me in awe of how someone managed to get that sound out of the saxophone - although most of the time I'm more like 'damn this is some snazzy improv'.

While I would say that most of the jazz influence is heard in the saxophone, you can hear it in other places too, such as in the nice dissonant chords in på åpent hav, which is the closer for their latest album.

Speaking of, hard anger, an album only released yesterday, is (at least for me) full of bangers and contains no skips. Having said that, metal does tend to be more of an acquired taste, and agabas don't use any clean vocals, making them not really an easy jumping in point for somebody that doesn't regularly listen to metal.

Agabas Announces Third Studio Album Hard Anger, Out June 13, 2025 The Norwegian band Agabas will release its third studio album, Hard Anger, on June 13, 2025. The album was recorded in a cabin located in the Hardanger fjord region of Norway. It features compositions that combine elements of metalcore, jazz, death metal, hardcore, black metal, progressive metal, and punk. The recordings include…