Ελληνικά
Genre: Death Metal
Country: U.S.A.
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Year: 2024
Gatecreeper’s Dark Superstition is their third full-length, and label debut for Nuclear Blast. It was highly anticipated by all fans of death metal as the band created a loyal fan base that saw in the guys from Arizona their new heroes. While their two previous efforts were both solid and strong being characterised as instant classics 2016’s Sonoran Depravation and 2019’s Deserted, (especially their debut), still the Dismember influences were not easy to be hidden nor that Gatecreeper’s members were trying to do so, but now in this third attempt the band is more ambitious, adventurous and brave trying to be more concise, melodic, and memorable than ever.
Dark Superstition deals with the supernatural, divination, fear of the unknown, and trust in magic or chance. “Many of the songs incorporate supernatural ideas with my own experiences,” Mason says. “But the title itself is a reference to the Superstition Mountains in our home state of Arizona. It’s a beautiful mountain range surrounded by tragedy and legends of hidden fortune.”
The album’s lead single ‘The Black Curtain’ leans heavily in a rock direction, and embodies Dark Superstition’s themes with a tale of divination. “It’s about being trapped between living and dying,” Mason tells. “A soul trapped in purgatory begging to be brought back by a supernatural force.”
Despite the obvious Dismember and Entombed inspiration we bump into some weird mixed influences as in Dead Star that brings in mind opens an early 90’s melodic death (In Flames-like) and early Paradise Lost’s gothy doom. Or in The Black Curtain that flirts with Type O Negative style. I can continue with Caught In The Treads that remind me of Metallica meets Mastodon and Flesh Habit that combines Fields of The Nephilim and Sisters Of Mercy with Entombed riffs. But you get the whole albums goes like that…
Please notice that for the recordings of the album the band had joined forces with drummer / songwriter Fred Estby, of Swedish death metal titans DISMEMBER, whose influences as we said before can be heard throughout the album which sees vocalist Chase H. Mason, guitarists Eric Wagner and Israel Garza, drummer Metal Matt Arrebollo and bassist Alex Brown—making huge steps that will either make Gatecreeper a giant or will (hope not) kill them.
