At The Gates are back. The melodic death behemoths from Gothenburg return with a new full length release and what a beast it is. Its 3 years since ‘To Drink From The Night Itself’ and the Swedish Overlords, are back with another slab of genius, bruising melodic death metal. It’s hard to find fault in anything At The Gates produce, yet album after album they seem to be able to go one better and confidently grow in stature.
Opening track ‘Spectre Of Extinction’ launches in with a delicate acoustic guitar doodle before the electricity and percussion comes crashing in. the vocals of Lindberg are delivered with pure passion and power and the intent to destroy is clearly evident. The bass from Bjorler is heavy and commanding and the six strings of Larsson and Stalhammar are attacked with precision and hyper speed. The vocals appear possessed and spat out with such ferocity and dedication it’s almost overwhelming in its make up
‘The Paradox’ opens with some solemn chords before the beast is unleashed once more. The groove behind the melody is prominent and the vocals are yet again as we would expect from the Gothenburg melodic death scene. The whole track is as catchy as it is heavy, the vocals are relentless, even when the musical backdrop pauses, the words are still spat out with spite and venom. Keys are utilised in poignant and clever moments and guitar solos are even injected to add a more obvious element of beauty to the track.
‘The Nightmare Of Being’ opens with some haunting melodic musical structure before being overlapped by haunting and mesmerising spoken word. The whole track is slowed down and given a more structured route to existence. The vocals are still as raspy and raucous as expected but the string work is absolutely beautiful and gorgeous in its deliverance with the drum beat plodding and structured in order to sit alongside the delicate power of the strings with ease. The whole track is punctuated with interludes of breath-taking guitar work to make you sit up and take note.
‘Garden Of Cyrus’ opens with whirling wind before more stripped down guitar melody is released. The whole track seems to be stripped bare in order to carve itself open to enchanting melody and an absolute depiction of beauty in the melodic and measured dark arts. The vocals are still delivered with the signature sound we all know and love from the lungs of the Swedish maestro, and the track still breaks free for moments in time when their aggressive and relentless brutal death core shines through.
‘Touched By The White Hands Of Death’ opens with another haunting and chilling intro, absolutely captivating and dominant before absolutely ferocious Swedish death metal steps to the forefront and enters the fold with power and depth we are yet to see on this album. From start to finish, the track is brutal and bullish in its structure. The guitars are unleashed at time to give us some freshness from the bruising depths of heavy we are now opened up to. Spoken word is yet again used to accentuate the track and these drop at perfect moments in order to highlight just how crunching and rounded the majority of the vocals are.
‘Cult Of Salvation’ continues in very much the same trend, starting with some exceptional, melodic metal doodle and then kicking in. this time though, the foot work from Erlandsson on the drums is phenomenal. The vocals seem to have upped the pace and ferocity as well and the whole track seems a little more polished in a non-conventional manner. There are piano interludes which carve the extreme backdrop open wide and allow the track to reset itself before continuing on its ferocious journey. The vocals seem to have matured on the track and this allows the track to become overall doomier.
Thrashier from the start and all out melodic death metal, ‘The Abstract Enthroned’ is a fast little number with vocals leaning towards the deathlier end of the spectrum. There is still melody a plenty on this track but it is delivered with an injection of pace and speed which we haven’t seen yet on this release. The track comes to close with a grand and haunting orchestral esque sound scape before a true epic melody section is exposed to you. The track really ups the ante in the melody stakes and ends on a beautiful musical score.
Penultimate track, ‘Cosmic Pessimism’, starts with a behemoth of bluesy and groovy spine. The vocals are in the spoken form and sit atop the blues rhythm before building slightly and then dropping straight back down into the groovy, toe tap inducing soul. The death vocals keep threatening to break through and mix well amidst the spoken majority. The track ends with some more colossal atmosphere before signing off with a solitary chord.
‘Eternal Winter Of Reason’ ends the album and ends it with a massive statement of intent. The Swedish warlords seem to throw everything into this track. There is melody a plenty, punctuating the track with shades of brilliance amongst the brutal and damaging death metal brand which at the gates have made their own.
This is an album everyone should own. Slaughter Of The Soul’ may well be considered a classic, but give this new offering a few years and it might just overshadow ‘Slaughter’, and become the new classic that everything else is bench marked against
(9/10 Phil Pountney)
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