Artist: At the Gates
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I've been talking about (and listening to) a lot of goth/darkwave recently, so I'm gonna keep on going with it. Diabolique formed in the mid-90s out of the ashes of Liers in Wait, one of the many New Wave of Swedish Death Metal bands that helped establish Göteborg as an international metal mecca. And if you go back even further, you'll find that frontman/guitarist Kristian Wåhlin (aka Necrolord) was also a founding member of the band Grotesque with vocalist Tomas Lindberg, pre-At the Gates. Kristian is also renown for his many cover paintings that graced oh-so-many of the 90's best metal releases (see a list at Kristian's official website). Anyhow, Diabolique released their first album "Wedding the grotesque" in 1997, and while it's a fairly decent example of doom metal with goth-leanings, it wasn't until their next release, 1999's "The black flower" that they really hit their stride. Heavy, shoegazer guitars mixed with deep vocals and a steady, pounding rhythm section. What I enjoy most about it is that heaviness - even though the music is most definitely not metal at this point, they still have a thick and beefy guitar tone that evokes the same sort of feeling. The bass is especially huge and driving. While I rank "The black flower" as one of my favorite Swedish CDs, the song I've posted today actually comes from the "Butterflies" EP that followed a year later. The music is a bit cleaner and lighter, but it's the vocals that really progressed the most. Kristian extends his range and instead of his usual baritone drone, he actually sings. I understand that many folks were turned off by that, but I think it works. Most of the time. The band's final album "The green goddess" (which I don't think was ever officially released, though somehow I did manage to find a copy in the used bin many years ago) goes even further by doing away with the deep vocals altogether and adding more electronic beats and synths. I absolutely hated it when I first heard it and I still can't say it's really worth tracking down. Regardless, eventually dissolved (probably at least partially due to label issues) and Kristian, along with drummer Hans Nilsson, eventually reunited with Lindberg in the band The Great Deceiver. But that's a post for another Friday...
Diabolique - Rain
There's going to be a "Making of" dualdisc version of At the Gates' classic album "Slaughter of the soul"? Weird. Anyhow, here's a teaser trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcqn91w6b9U
This week's Nordic Rox playlist: http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/Page&c=FlexContent&cid=1146347242424
Not only are many of the tracks the same as last week, but I see only 1 non-Swedish artist. That's pathetic. Also, it's the band At the Gates with the song "Slaughter of the soul", not the other way around.
The final mp3 from our week of Scandinavian folk comes from Hedningarna, the group responsible for getting me seriously interested in the genre. I can still remember the first time I heard them - a friend of mine who worked at a record store had picked up a copy of "Trä" on a whim and we were both blown away by how amazing and unique it sounded. The instruments are traditional, but they're amplified and distorted and far away from the stodgy, pristine production usually found on world music recordings. I was already fairly heavily interested in Scandinavian music at the time (this was around '97, if I remember right. I was probably just getting over my At the Gates infatuation.), but hearing Hedningarna took it to the next level. This live track that I've posted for you today is a great example of what the group is capable of. Wimme starts off the piece with a joik over a droning bass note. The piece builds and band gets louder and louder until the hurdy gurdy comes in takes things to a huge, buzzing climax. It's way more intense than what most post-rock bands are capable of.
The final mp3 from our week of Scandinavian folk comes from Hedningarna, the group responsible for getting me seriously interested in the genre. I can still remember the first time I heard them - a friend of mine who worked at a record store had picked up a copy of "Trä" on a whim and we were both blown away by how amazing and unique it sounded. The instruments are traditional, but they're amplified and distorted and far away from the stodgy, pristine production usually found on world music recordings. I was already fairly heavily interested in Scandinavian music at the time (this was around '97, if I remember right. I was probably just getting over my At the Gates infatuation.), but hearing Hedningarna took it to the next level. This live track that I've posted for you today is a great example of what the group is capable of. Wimme starts off the piece with a joik over a droning bass note. The piece builds and band gets louder and louder until the hurdy gurdy comes in takes things to a huge, buzzing climax. It's way more intense than what most post-rock bands are capable of.
Hedningarna - Live from P3
Dark Dose posts on one of my all-time favorite metal bands At the Gates: http://darkdose.com/?p=111
"Terminal spirit disease" was also my first introduction to the band and remains in my top 10 to this day. I must've listened to it at least three or four times in a row the day I brought it home.
It's Thrash Friday once again and this time we're turning to Enslaved for a classic piece of Norwegian metal. Way back in 1995, when the band was still singing exclusively in their mother tongue, they recorded this cover of the Slayer classic "Jesus saves" for the "Slatanic slaughter" tribute record. Even though mostly everyone plays it safe and doesn't stray too far from the original compositions, it's an amazing compilation that features some of the best Scandinavian metal acts of the day: Dissection, At the Gates, Edge of Sanity, Seance, Hypocrisy and more. It was so good they even put out a lesser quality sequel disc that I foolishly purchased. Anyhow, as anyone who's seen Enslaved live should already know, the band takes their art very seriously, but isn't afraid to enjoy themselves while doing it. What better way to kick back than covering one of metal's greatest bands? If that's not a perfect way to start off your Friday, then I don't know what is.
Download some old demo tracks from Terror, a Swedish metal band featuring pre-At the Gates/The Haunted members Anders Björler, Jonas Björler and Adrian Erlandsson together with Jon Nödtveit of Dissection: http://homepage.mac.com/soulrot/terror.html
Check out some more old stuff from Adrian Erlandsson such as Skitsystem (he quit in '96) and HEAL: http://homepage.mac.com/soulrot/mpdown.html
Rejoice! According to a recent interview with Tartarean Desire, Adrian Erlandsson confirms that an At the Gates reunion will happen eventually: http://www.tartareandesire.com/
Ex-At the Gates/The Haunted drummer Adrian Erlandsson (now in the UK-based act Cradle of Filth) has launched his own website: http://www.adrianerlandsson.com
A few years ago, while I was fully immersed in metal, The Haunted became one of my favourite bands. Their first album took the art of the no-frills trash record to new heights; to me that record was better than Slayer's "Reign in Blood" or "Season in the Abyss", Metallica's "Master of Puppets" or Megadeth's "Peace Sells". It was a revelation and it carried afterwards a slew of other good (Darkane, Defleshed, The Crown) and not so good (Carnal Forge, Gandalf) bands that were brought to prominence at the end of the nineties. While The Haunted continued their road on the thrash map, in the process changing vocalist from Peter Dolving to Marco Aro, I lost a bit of interest. Aro's delivery, while aggressive, was run-of-the-mill death vocals that did absolutely nothing for me. The additional consequence was that the bands felt the need to go as aggressive as possible with Aro and were losing the subtle things that made them good in the first place.
Two records later: Dolving is back and so is the band. First of all, this supposed evolution of the band is not that big of a deal. What they did is finally picked some melodic elements in the old At the Gates' bag of tricks, which was left unopened since the demise of the band and the formation of this one. We are talking about a majority of the songs here being extremely up tempo and a few numbers being mid-paced. The return of Dolving permits the band to use his vast array of talents in different situations and vary the attack with a lot more ease than it would have been possible with Aro. Here is how it goes song per song:
"No Compromise" starts the record as if recorded in a shoe box with strange rhythm pattern before going all out in the traditional Slayer-at-their-best thrash number that starts off the record not only with a bang but also reintroduced shouted backing vocals to the foray, something that was never part of their arsenal with Aro. The slower mid-section is so chest-pumping heavy it is amazing.
"99" is a bit of lower bpm affair that brings memories of "The Red in the Sky is Ours", with a bit a more modern melodic Gothenburg style but not without your scarifying on the violence.
"Abysmal" starts with clean guitars and Dolving doing what makes him a better fit for this band: the ability to actually sing (although he does very little of that on the record), and it is a nice change of pace. Once again this one lowers the bpm a little more and shows the band in all their mid-paced glory. This song sounds a bit like what Entombed sound like since the Death 'n Roll conversion.
"Sabotage" is one of those songs that is meant to blow your head clean off and does not quite succeed even though the song is pretty good. The breakdown at the end of the song particularly good the chorus just doen't do it.
"All Against All" is more of a mid-paced song that is probably the weakest on the entire album. I don't know why they felt the need to put it right in the middle of the album. It does have a nice lead and melodic guitar riff that accompanies it.
"Sweet Relief" is a throwback to the self-titled album: Fast and furious riffing but once again a very nice melodic lead and a breakdown changes things up mid song, much to my delight. This rocks.
"Burn to a Shell" once again displays Dolving's abilities, in the singing and screaming department. This could be considered The Haunted's ‘ballad' much like "Fade to Black" was but this one never stays in the ballad mode for long. Perhaps the strongest number on the album as it shows everything they are able to do, as well as combining them with a lot of ease.
"Who Will Decide" continues in the not-so-fast department but also shows just about every tempo change in a single song this band is able to do, and they do it well. Not the strongest song but certainly not the worst.
"Nothing Right". At this point if you did not enjoy the rest of the album, then you have no reason listening to this, but you would be missing out. The Haunted on this record throws at you everything but the kitchen sink and this song is a perfect example of subtle changes in riffs, stopping the guitars there and just changing things up mid-song. Just great stuff.
"Liquid Burns" continues the tradition of fast thrash and melodic enhancement this record brought to us.
"My Shadow" finishes the album, much like the self-titled one finished with a half spoken-word, half singing affair in depressing fashion. This is a good finishing song, although it is certainly not the band's strength.
- Simon Thibaudeau
Current Haunted guitarist Anders Björler has moved the official website for his old band At the Gates to a new location: http://www.atthegates.se/
Tracklist for the upcoming "Slaughterous Souls - A Tribute to At The Gates" compilation coming in September from Drowned Scream Records and Goi Music:
01. Taetre (SWE) - "At The Gates"
02. Godhate (SWE) - "Kingdom Gone"
03. Mörk Gryning (SWE) - "Neverwhere"
04. Moonskin (ISR) - "Raped By The Light Of Christ"
05. Darkness By Oath (BAS) - "The Swarm"
06. Soul Demise (GER) - "Forever Blind"
07. Eternal Oath (SWE) - "The Fevered Circle"
08. Eternal Gray (ISR) - "Blinded By Fear"
09. Illdisposed (DK) - "Slaughter Of The Soul"
10. Enter Chaos (POL) - "Cold"
11. Detonation (HOL) - "Under A Serpent Sun"
12. Misanthrope (FRA) - "Suicide Nation"
13. Paganizer (SWE) - "Nausea"
14. Vile (US) - "Cold" (Live)
15. In Aeternum (SWE) - "Blood Run From The Altar" (Grotesque cover bonus track)
The CD package will also contain a 20-page booklet including comments from At the Gates members, a map of the band history and more. The sentiment is cool, but I'm not terribly impressed with that lineup. Who knows though? Could still be great.
Blackend Records will be reissuing a couple classic Swedish metal releases in the near future. First up is the debut EP from At the Gates "Gardens of Grief" which has now been remastered and will be out on July 5. Next up is the "Metal Militia" Metallica tribute featuring all sorts of all-stars from the early/mid 90s Göteborg metal scene such as In Flames, Luciferion, Ceremonial Oath, Dark Tranquility and Snotrocket (who sound awfully similar to ATG). I haven't listened to my copy of this thing in years, but it's cool to see that it'll be available once again. That comes out July 26. They are also reissuing the Black Sun Records tribute to Sepultura. It's got your usual suspects such as Impious, Gardenian, Dimension Zero as well as Deathwitch, Swordmaster, Lord Belial, Children of Bodom and more. It comes out September 27. And that's not all, the next albums in line for reissue are the classics "The Burning" and "Eternal Death" from The Crown, from what I think were still their Crown of Thorns days. The former comes out July 5, the latter on September 9. Last, but not least, look for the reissue of "Spiritually Uncontrolled Art" from Liers in Wait. This amazing band featured Kristian Wåhlin and Hans Nilsson from Diabolique/The Great Deceiver following the breakup of pre-At the Gates band Grotesque. There were some other dudes who came and went as well and Christopher Johnsson from Therion did guest vocals on this sole recording. Good stuff. That comes out August 9. As for the future, the label says they'll be doing even more reissues this winter featuring artists like Sacrilege (SWE) and Diabolique, who have always been one of my favorites. More details when I get them.