IT’S OFFICIAL: AT THE GATES WILL RELEASE A NEW ALBUM IN 2014

 Metal News  11 Responses »
Jan 272014
 

We earlier reported a bit of a video tease from seminal melodic death metal band At the Gates which suggested that a new album might be on the way for the first time in almost two decades. And now, it’s official. Here’s a statement from the band; I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting a few passages of particular interest:

“So, here we are almost 24 years since the birth of AT THE GATES, and some 18+ years since our latest album Slaughter Of The Soul. A lot of years have passed and we have embarked on some life-changing reunion tours and shows the last couple of years.

“So, why make a new album you might ask, and why now? Well, what we learned from the last couple of years hanging out and playing shows together, is that we enjoy what we do to the fullest extent. We love playing music together, and we love to hang out as friends. But, as a musician, we constantly write new music. It’s a huge part of our identities.

“We are fully aware that we have made some very drastic statements in interviews as well as the closing words on the DVD about the longevity of AT THE GATES, but things change, situations change and people change. When Anders sent the first song last summer, we had zero expectations of the outcome. We only knew one thing – That it sounded amazing! At the time we weren’t even sure there would be an album, but as things progressed, more songs came into existence, and we knew we were on to something great. Continue reading »

A NEW AT THE GATES ALBUM?!? YES PLEASE!

 Metal News  19 Responses »
Jan 212014
 

I just read a post at Metal Injection that elevated my heart rate significantly above its usual slothlike repose. I have nothing else to add to what Greg Kennelty wrote, so I’m simply going to post it here to spread the exciting news. Feel free to excrete reproductive juices in the Comments.

“Oh my God I am so excited right now. Just minutes ago, At the Gates took to their Facebook page to post the below video. There was no description given or title for the video, and there is no description listed on YouTube. The comments section is also disabled.” Continue reading »

EARACHE AND OSMOSE ON BANDCAMP

 Metal News  17 Responses »
Nov 122012
 

We’ve been singing the praises of Bandcamp since the early days of that platform. In a relatively short time, it has become a vital source for the streaming and distribution of metal, recently expanding its service to become a vehicle for the distribution of merch as well as digital music in a variety of high-quality formats. One sign of Bandcamp’s success is the increasing use of the site by metal labels to stream and distribute albums in their catalogues.

Thanks to MaxR at Metal Bandcamp — which remains THE best way to keep up with the appearance of new metal releases on Bandcamp — we’ve learned that two more labels have recently established Bandcamp beachheads: Earache Records and Osmose Productions.

EARACHE

As far as we’re concerned, this is really big news. Earache Records was founded in the late 80s and was one of the true pioneers in releasing extreme music. Of course, they’re still going strong today, but their back catalogue is like a museum for the history of hardcore and metal.

So far, Earache has added five albums from their catalogue to Bandcamp: Slaughter of the Soul by At the Gates (1995); Five Serpent’s Teeth by Evile (2011); Pressure and Time (Redux) by Rival Sons (2012); Scum (1987) [Full Dynamic Range 2012 Edition] by Napalm Death; and From Enslavement To Obliteration (1988) [Full Dynamic Range 2012 Edition], also by Napalm Death. Continue reading »

THEMADISRAELI’S TOP 20 ALBUMS OF ALL TIME: AT THE GATES’ “SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Feb 192012
 

“We are blind to the world within us… waiting to be reborn.”

No more badass sentence could’ve been uttered to brace you for the impact of this album.

Five bands define melodic death metal for me: At The Gates, Arch Enemy on their first three records, Soilwork pre-Natural Born Chaos, In Flames on Jester Race and Whoracle, and Carcass on Heartwork.  If a band isn’t borrowing from these audio “how to do melodic death metal right” 101 manuals, I usually have no interest in their music.  While others were busy playing with themselves over how folksy or even poppy they could make their melodies, these three bands knew how to bring the melody, the darkness, and the intensity, all in a single package.

Obviously, you know who I’m talking about today: Slaughter Of The Soul is one of my top 20 albums of all time.

I’ve already touched on my love for this album in a prior installment of my Revisiting the Classics series (which I really need to get off my ass and continue). I labeled it with accolades such as “The melodic death metal standard”.  I still stand by this, although I do think there is more than one standard (and others will eventually appear on this list).  This album is vicious, fast (a must), memorable, and technical, all at once.

The riffs may not seem like much to some, but the intricacy with which they were crafted is to me simply self-evident. Such careful attention was paid to the melodies, which are tastefully direct and no-nonsense.  That guitar tone that sounds like the impact of a sledgehammer splitting a hunk of stone still gets me every time as well, not to mention the inhumanly tight playing of guitarists Anders Björler and Martin Larsson. Continue reading »

REVISITING THE CLASSICS: “SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL”

 Revisiting the Classics  20 Responses »
Aug 132011
 

(TheMadIsraeli (the artist formerly known as Israel Flanders) steps into the WayBack machine to revisit an At the Gates classic.)

I think it’s time to take a few steps back away from the current metal scene and revisit a timeless classic in the metal landscape. I’ve decided that from here on, I’ll be doing not only current reviews, but also reviews of albums from the past I absolutely adore. Without further ado…

Anyone worth his weight in metal should know this album, this band, and the MASSIVE influence they have had on metal since the album’s release. This is, by all accounts, THE melodic death metal standard. Never did a band of the Gothenburg elite craft an album this aggressive, this vicious, all while retaining pure melodic content throughout. This is also a controversial album, of course, often slandered for its initiation of tens of thousands of At The Gates imitators. But don’t hate the masters, hate the weak imitators.

This is one of my top 10 albums of all time, ever, in metal, period. To me, this is a perfect, absolutely flawless, 10/10, 100% all-killer-no-filler, sonic assault. Those riffs, those vicious vocals, that fucking guitar tone that no one to this day seems to know how to dial in as well, the jarring tempo changes, all contained in very concise, to-the-point songs that don’t wander or play around in any way.

Slaughter Of The Soul (or “SOTS”, as we’ll refer to it from here on) is the final album from this Swedish five-piece before their unexpected decision to quit, preferring to stop while they were ahead and not risk becoming self-parodying ass-hats (*coughArchEnemycough*). A very respectable move indeed. Even to this day, even after re-forming, the band claims they shall not write a single new song for the rest of their lives. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE ERLANDSSON BROTHERS TEAR IT UP AT TUSKA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Aug 042011
 

Adrian and Daniel Erlandsson are brothers, both of whom started playing drums at an early age in their home in Malmö, Sweden. Adrian went on to become the drummer for bands such as At the Gates, The Haunted, and Cradle of Filth, and currently plays for Brujeria and Paradise Lost. Daniel has been almost as prolific. His work includes drum duties on In Flames‘ Subterranean album, and he’s been the drummer for Arch Enemy since 1998.

By all accounts, both are considered very good at what they do. I’ve admitted before that I’m not a good judge of technical ability; I tend to fall into a state of slack-jawed wonder when I watch almost any capable extreme-metal drummer performing live. I can’t wrap my mind around the stamina, the physical coordination, and the memory skills required to play such intricate rhythms at such high speed for such a long time. But I do know what I like to hear, and I like to hear the Erlandsson brothers at work.

Not long ago, we featured drum-cam footage of Fredrik Andersson of Amon Amarth playing at the recent Tuska music festival in Finland. Now we’ve got drum-cam video of the Erlandsson brothers at the same festival — Adrian performing with the legendary At the Gates, and Daniel with Arch Enemy. I had fun watching these clips, and only a couple of flies entered my open mouth while I watched. I thought you might like this shit, too, so after the jump you can check out the brothers Erlandsson doing what they do best. Continue reading »

TAKING IT ON FAITH: NEW CHIMAIRA SONGS PLUS MAYHEM, AT THE GATES, AND MORE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 202011
 

Surely, I’ve done stupider things here at NCS than I’m about to do, though I can’t remember when.

So, in catching up with metal news this morning, I found a whole bunch of shit that peaked my interest. To decide whether it was all worth sharing with you, I needed to listen to some music. I reached for my trusty iPod to get the earbuds and plug them into my laptop, and . . . no fucking iPod. No fucking earbuds.

I’m in Texas visiting my mother and brother, and I think I left my iPod at my mom’s place yesterday, but at the moment I’m earless (and my hearing is too shot to make out very much from the tinny, crappy little speakers on my laptop). But I decided, fuckit, I’m going to share the items I’ve found with you even though I haven’t heard most of them. Maybe you’ll tell me whether it was worthwhile.

Here’s the line-up: Chimaira has debuted two new songs from The Age of Hell album, which is due for release in late August by Long Branch Records in Europe and eOne Music in NorthAm. One is streaming exclusively at MetalSucks (here) and one at Revolver (here). You can buy both of them at iTunes right now. As I said, I haven’t heard them, though I’m a Chimaira fan. I hope they’re good. I bet they will be. If you haven’t already heard, the new Chimaira line-up includes two of the dudes from Daath — Emil Werstler (on bass!) and Sean Z. (on keyboards!).

After the jump . . . performance videos from Mayhem and At the Gates at festivals this past weekend, plus news about full-album streams from In Flames and The Devin Townsend Project. Continue reading »

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE: MAFIA

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Jun 022010
 

A few short weeks ago, we mourned the apparent demise of Hour of Penance, a fantastic band from Rome that a well-known metal blogger characterized in an e-mail to us as “the Italian Behemoth.” (The most recent NCS post about HOP can be found here.) Our one consolation was the knowledge that the other band featuring the multi-talented HOP vocalist Francesco Paoli — Fleshgod Apocalypse — was still alive and well, and had a new album on the way.

Our advance copy of that album (which is really an EP) arrived a few days ago, and we tore into it like a pack of ravenous wolves. It’s called MAFIA, and that is indeed what it’s about. This statement from the band appears in the CD insert:

MAFIA is dedicated to all those who shed their own blood to fight the neverending curse of racketeering. We do support the war against those animals.

La Cosa Nostra is certainly not the typical subject matter of extreme metal songs, and we have more to say about the concept behind this album and the small and large ways in which that concept works its way through the music.

But to cut to the chase about the music, MAFIA will explode your head. If you liked this band’s debut album, Oracles, you will be mighty pleased by the new one. And if you haven’t yet checked out Fleshgod Apocalypse, don’t put it off any longer.  They’re putting out music that’s not quite like anything else you’ve heard. (more after the jump, including our favorite track from MAFIA . . .) Continue reading »

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