Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 06:10 PM by Lilliana Tseka
Genre: Death
Country: U.S.A.
Label: Relapse Records
Year: 2016
There is some serious shit going on in this record and you can tell from the swamp that comes out of the speakers from the very first second, but let’s take everything from the beginning. GATECREEPER was forged in September of 2013 with members originating from both Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona and some of them were involved with older, yet not so old, bands from the same state like Hellhorse and Sovereign. As Gatecreeper, they have released a homonymous EP in 2014 and three splits: One in 2015 with Take Over and Destroy and two in 2016, one with YAITW and a quadruple one with Homewrecker, Outer Heaven and Scorched. That makes it a bunch of raw songs, plus a Pentagram cover (“All Your Sins”), that showed what the band is up for and this is traditional, mostly European, 90s death metal, with a bit of doom for the flavour, all served with a crushing sound.
Gatecreeper’s death metal is neither that extreme nor that polished. It is raw, it is brutal, but it is melodic and with a lot of musicality and groove. I don’t know how they made it, but they combined the guitar sound of early Entombed, Dismember’s sense of melody, listen to “Desperation”, Asphyx’s vocals and groove, like in “Flamethrower”, and Bolt Thrower’s death/doom approach and interchange of slower parts with outbreaks, in “Grotesque Operations” for example. You can also hear some traces of Autopsy/Incantation insanity and rotten doom worship that add to the overall atmosphere and aesthetics. This is definitely the best recipe for successful death metal music, but it is not that simple in execution. The album was produced by Ryan Bram at Homewrecker Studios, mixed by none other than Kurt Ballou (Converge, Nails, Black Breath, High On Fire) at God City Studios and mastered by Brad Boatright (Obituary, Sleep, Magrudergrind). With that kind of collaboration behind it, it is not strange that the sound is just perfect, filled with thick chainsaw guitars and bass and natural sounding drums. The songs are full of riffs that follow with (im)piety the legacy of the genre giving way to melodic parts so the tempo changes put you in a state of hypnosis or shake you back from it many times even in the same song. On top of that you get some amazingly mature deep growling vocals, one of the best I‘ve heard in a long time. There is no song to particularly praise out of the album, all of them one after another are continuing the greatest chapters of death metal on their own merit. And let’s don’t go down the path about the originality discussion, yes, many parts will bring older songs from other bands in mind, that didn’t turn me off one second and neither should you. As for the cover, it was made by Adam Burke, the same artist who did Vektor’s “Terminal Redux” and you can’t fail to recognise the style. Although both covers share a cosmic vibe, in “Sonorous Depravation” the colours used are more earthly expressing the warmth and the immediacy of the music, giving also an apocalyptic tone over this avalanche of power that is in the album.
“Sonorous Depravation” might be a very traditional album in its ingredients, yet it is very fresh in its deliverance and catches you from the first riff to the melodic fade out. Gatecreeper’s sound is neither anachronistic nor too modern, it is a natural sonic disastrous asset, as good as their songwriting. In a world without Bolt Thrower, our music needs more bands like Gatecreeper and more albums like “Sonoran Depravation”.
4,5/6
