“Anyone who’s brushed against James Joyce’s modernist classic Ulysses has almost certainly encountered the phrase “remorse of conscience” before. A pivotal theme of the novel, remorse of conscience refers to more than mere guilt over a perceived ethical failure but the misery inflicted by it, its weight and torment. In the days leading up to receiving Remorse of Conscience, the independent debut from New Hampshire’s genre-blending Agenbite Misery, a record informed by Ulysses and “steeped in grief, alienation and the search for meaning in modern life,” I was experiencing that eponymous turmoil myself.” Modern Hellenic disorientation.
