Live run-through of their greatest long-player

I rather felt for Life Of Agony the first time I saw them. I’d been a bit of a fan for a few albums, and had always enjoyed their particular brand of post-NYHC / nu-metal even as it morphed into more mainstream rock. Then they made a really bad turn just prior to the show, and I don’t think they ever recovered; frontman Keith Caputo, possessor of some extraordinarily distinctive pipes, left in a strop and was replaced by the former-Ugly Kid Joe singer Whitfield Crane. The show I saw, at some big metal festival many yonks hence, was one of Whitfield’s first shows with the band, and boy did they suck. Fortunately, Crane’s tenure with the band was short, and Caputo eventually returned to the fold a few years ago for occasional shows. Though they have yet to issue any genuinely new material, the foursome are back on a large-scale tour in 2010, and ahead of this have released this live double CD / DVD featuring a special show in Brussels when they performed the classic “River Runs Red” record in its entirety to celebrate 20 years since the album was released. While it looks and sounds good, and I can see the point of doing it this way, I surely can’t be the only person who’d have preferred them to either bring us a live record which incorporated their entire career, or even better a new studio effort. Still, it’s a nice reminder of a very cool and influential record, and LOA fans will rightly be creaming themselves over the prospect of this (and more) from the Noo Yoikers.

EDDIE THOMAS