Agent Steel
High-velocity speed metal fueled by soaring falsetto and UFO conspiracies. Intense, melodic, and relentlessly fast music for looking at the stars and driving too fast.
High-velocity speed metal fueled by soaring falsetto and UFO conspiracies. Intense, melodic, and relentlessly fast music for looking at the stars and driving too fast.
Agent Steel sounds like a chrome-plated engine screaming toward the stratosphere. It is the quintessential sound of 1980s US speed metal, defined by a razor-sharp guitar tone and a rhythmic urgency that borders on the frantic. The music occupies a unique space where the technical precision of thrash meets the soaring, melodic sensibilities of European power metal, all delivered with a distinctively American grit.
What truly sets them apart is the vocal performance of John Cyriis and the band's thematic obsession with extraterrestrial life and government conspiracies. While their peers were singing about hell or street violence, Agent Steel was looking at the stars. The vocals are legendary for their piercing, glass-shattering height, used not just as a melody line but as a sonic weapon that cuts through the dense wall of galloping riffs.
Start with the 1985 classic Skeptics Apocalypse. It is the definitive statement of their sound, capturing the raw energy of the LA metal scene while introducing the 'Masters of Metal' persona that would influence decades of power and speed metal bands to follow.
Agent Steel is an American speed metal band from Los Angeles, formed in 1984 by vocalist John Cyriis with drummer Chuck Profus. The band released two full-length albums and one EP before disbanding in 1988. They have since reformed twice. They are most notable for Cyriis' high-pitched vocals, melodic riffs, and fast tempos mixed in with interest in UFOs. Agent Steel reformed in 1998 (without Cyriis, although he would return to the band in 2010, only to leave again in 2011) and released three more full-length albums before going on hiatus in 2011. The band reformed again in 2018, this time with Cyriis returning as the vocalist and without any previous members (including longtime guitarist Juan Garcia, who is now in Evildead and Body Count); under this new lineup, Agent Steel released their first studio album in 14 years (and also their first in 34 years to feature Cyriis), No Other Godz Before Me, in 2021.
Shares galloping palm-muted riffs, power metal, thrash metal, heavy metal (detail)
Shares speed metal, galloping palm-muted riffs, power metal, thrash metal (signature)
Shares speed metal, power metal, thrash metal, heavy metal (signature)
Shares speed metal, galloping palm-muted riffs, power metal, thrash metal (signature)
Shares speed metal, galloping palm-muted riffs, power metal, thrash metal (signature)
Shares speed metal, galloping palm-muted riffs, power metal, thrash metal (signature)
Shares power metal, thrash metal, heavy metal, thunderstorm (subgenre)
Shares galloping palm-muted riffs, power metal, thrash metal, heavy metal (detail)
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