Extreme-metal visionaries AGENBITE MISERY return with their newest single, “Cascara Sagrada,” a ferocious and intricately constructed piece that showcases the band’s most adventurous writing to date. The track serves as the latest preview of their debut full-length Remorse of Conscience, a concept album that adapts every chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses into a standalone sonic experience.

Originally the final composition written for the record, “Cascara Sagrada” stands apart with its non-traditional structure, technical ambition, and uniquely dissonant atmosphere. Drawing heavily from avant-extreme acts like Pyrrhon and Convulsing, the single embodies the unsettling tension and warped melodicism that defines the band’s sound.

Lyrically and conceptually, the song adapts “Calypso,” the fourth episode of Ulysses, introducing protagonist Leopold Bloom as he navigates a sequence of mundane morning rituals. AGENBITE MISERY push this banality into sinister territory, using repetition, structural distortion, and grinding dissonance to reflect the bleak monotony simmering beneath everyday life. Motifs recur like intrusive thoughts, constantly familiar, perpetually destabilized.

Musically, “Cascara Sagrada” traverses a bold and unpredictable arc: a sludgy, odd-meter opening riff with sliding guitars and angular drum phrasing; a Slint-inspired indie-rock passage filled with tense chord voicings; a plunge into a psychedelic black-metal spiral; an unconventional solo section featuring core-leaning chugs, an explosive drum showcase, and a dissonant death-metal guitar lead; and finally, an extended crescendo of supreme dissonance, slowing in tempo as the band grinds between two unnerving chords, culminating in an uncomfortably powerful resolution.

The lyrics mirror this escalating unease. The opening lines reference Bloom’s domestic tasks (“Kidneys were in his mind”) before spiraling into the concept of metempsychosis, the novel’s core theme of spiritual migration across identities and histories. A spoken-word interlude draws directly from Joyce’s depiction of Bloom in the bathroom, injecting dark humor amid the turmoil. The climactic section erupts into a fever-dream vision of biblical desolation and ancestral dread. The final vocal barrage (“Grey horror seared his flesh / Cold oils slid along his veins…”) pushes the song to a visceral emotional peak.

With Remorse of Conscience, AGENBITE MISERY carve out a singular artistic space where literary modernism and extreme metal collide with startling clarity. “Cascara Sagrada” offers a vivid glimpse into the album’s ambition. The song presents a transformative, genre-defying journey through one of literature’s most challenging works, reimagined through a lens of sonic extremity.

About AGENBITE MISERY:
AGENBITE MISERY is a New Hampshire-based trio that fuses literary ambition with the visceral force of experimental metal. Formed in 2022 by guitarist Sam Graff, bassist Cam Netland, and drummer Adam Richards, the band emerged from a shared academic background in literature and a mutual devotion to the most extreme and boundary-pushing corners of heavy music.

At its core, AGENBITE MISERY is a project rooted in transformation. Their work doesn’t merely incorporate influences, it dismantles them, reshapes them, and recontextualizes them within a vision that is as cerebral as it is punishing. Their sound weaves together elements of black metal, sludge, death metal, post-punk, ambient, and noise rock, unified not by style but by intent: to confront, to immerse, and to challenge.

Individually, the members bring a history of musical experimentation: Sam Graff and Adam Richards were longtime collaborators in the avant-garde project UNDER GREEN SUNS and the Boston metalcore outfit VICARIUM, while Cam Netland previously fronted the Connecticut stoner/black metal band COAGULATE. Together, they’ve forged something entirely distinct, a collective voice that draws from their diverse histories but refuses to be defined by any one genre or scene.

AGENBITE MISERY exists at the edge of metal and the margins of modern art, translating abstract ideas into concrete sound with unrelenting force. Whether performing live or recording in isolation, their ethos remains constant: dig deeper, aim higher, and never repeat what has already been done.

AGENBITE MISERY is:
Sam Graff – Guitars / Vocals / Synth
Cam Netland – Bass / Vocals
Adam Richards – Drums / Vocals

Connect with AGENBITE MISERY:
Bandcamp: https://agenbitemisery.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574211514876#
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agenbitemisery/?hl=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwjOZilhkqTRkZHpJJwlbhw
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6dYQgCtNvpvNWwfQ06LQQZ
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/agenbite-misery/1716987132
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@agenbite.misery
Ampwall: https://agenbitemisery.ampwall.com/