In a follow-up to their 2019 self-published album, Welcome to Silvertown, Saint Agnes has joined the Finnish record label, Spinefarm, to release an album that breaks through the punk, metal, and industrial genres. Bloodsuckers is an unfettered, rage-filled collection of eleven tracks fueled by the momentum the band has built while on multiple headlining tours across Europe and the UK. After making themselves known at festivals like Download, 2000 Trees, and Isle of Wight, Saint Agnes has fine-tuned their sound, mixing and producing the majority of the album themselves so that audiences are able to experience their originality and pure creativity. When the band did pull in outside influences, they selected from the best. Mimi Barks lends her trap metal influences on the short, punchy song “Body Bag” and metal icon Sean Beavens, the master mixer behind NIN’s Pretty Little Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral and Marilyn Manson’s Portrait of an American Family and Antichrist Superstar, flexed his artistic ear while mixing the album’s standout track, “Follow You.”
The gang’s authenticity and uncagable sound isn’t just their trademark. It’s their calling card. Taking their namesake from the patron saint of young girls who have experienced abuse, the band creates music with unrestrained rage, putting hard-hitting drums and screamed lyrics to feelings of grief, anger, and struggles with mental illness. “This is a record for the defeated, the crushed,” says lead-singer Kitty Austen. “I’ve tried to put everything I’ve been feeling into it, all the pain, the rage, the grief, even the unexpected moments of beauty and belief.” From the moment the titular first song begins, Andrew Head on Drums, Jon James Tufnell on guitar, and Ryan Brown (replacing Ben Chernett) on bass draw audiences in with a slow-building ramp up to chaos and noise. The effect reminded me of waiting outside the club, the music slowly getting louder and louder as the door grows nearer, until at last it’s time to enter and the full volume of the show hits the ears. The album instantly invites people in and provides a free space to express those hard-to-handle feelings through Kitty’s intense but relatable lyrics.
The album as a whole unfolds like a story with the main character vacillating between hate for others and hate for self. While “I Mean Nothing To You” is the rage anthem of a woman who realizes she has been fooled and is ready to take control, “At War With Myself” is a compelling and self-reverent explanation of the demoralizing internal battle that stems from anxiety. As the album shifts through this wide range of emotions, it leaps through genres, making brilliant use of different styles to deepen the meaning behind the songs. All stages of grief are represented and given the space to build, burn, and diffuse.
Kitty says it best: “Bloodsuckers forever, Saint Agnes forever.” Like all my favorite bands I’ve covered lately, Saint Agnes will only be touring the UK and Europe this summer. But their incredible album hits the music world on July 21st with their single, “Bloodsuckers,” already available with an intensely visual music video.
I’m Music Magazine Writer Kayleigh Rongey
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