With "Flash Agonistes," the third album from St. Paul, Minnesota solo act Flash Bastard, Esq., Brian James continues to refine his unique synthesis of new wave, power-pop, synth pop, and Tropicalia. Following on the gains of his sophomore effort, "Urbane," James wrote and recorded the entirety of "Flash Agonistes" in a sustained creative burst, going start to finish in just a little over two months' time. This, like his previous two efforts, appears on Outback Savior Records. From the artist: "I think I'm still attempting what I've been doing since I started as Flash Bastard, which is trying to find a way to weld together a handful of albums that I've never heard combined by anyone else: 'Dazzle Ships' by OMD, 'Black Sea' or 'Drums and Wires' by XTC, 'Stands for deciBels' by the dBs, 'Here Come the Warm Jets' by Brian Eno, and Caetano Veloso's first solo record. There's other music in my music, but you could lay just those records in a pentagon, and I'd happily spend the rest of my career exploring the space inside it." "The title translates to 'Flash the Combatant.' I started out thinking it was going to be an angry album, and it certainly is in places -- several of the songs came about from thinking about turning myself loose on some horrible people. But that concept didn't see me all the way through, and the idea naturally widened out to be more about struggling. With other people, certainly, but with myself, too, and with life with all its crushing disappointments and frustrations."