From Issue #305

(Note - this was the final column. Want to know why? Write to MRR...)

A few weeks ago Gothenburg, Sweden’s At The Gates came storming down the West Coast. I was in the Bay Area at the time and was lucky enough to catch the show at the Fillmore. It’s easy to dismiss At The Gates as overhyped bullshit given the thousands of horrible melodic metal and metalcore bands they spawned in their wake. But to do is just as cliché as all those bands trying to cop their sound. There are several reasons for this.

First, At The Gates was around at the beginning of the death metal movement. And not just the death metal movement, but the SWEDISH death metal movement, the best and most amazing death metal scene of all. Tomas Lindberg, the band’s vocalist, was active in the scene prior to the formation of At The Gates in many ways, doing his zine Cascade, setting up shows and playing in The Grotesque who along with Nihilist, set the stage for the death metal boom in their homeland. The Bjorler twins played in the band Infestation, and original guitarist guitarist Alf Svensson played in many projects including mid 80s Swedish hardcore band Oral.

Secondly, every album At The Gates created was a masterpiece, from their debut mini-LP Gardens Of Grief, on all the way up to Slaughter Of The Soul, the album for which they are most known, and in many cases the only one people have checked out (a fucking tragedy).

Lastly to write them off for their popularity gives no credit to the fact that they are ridiculously amazing live band even today after a 12 year break. Not to mention, At The Gates became way more popular in death then they ever were life, they had no control over their own martyrdom.

When Slaughter Of The Soul was released in late ’95, I bought the cassette the day it came out. I’d already been listening to the band for several years, and was into the direction they had taken on their previous release Terminal Spirit Disease a mini-album that also contained live versions of several classic older songs. I loved the old style, but the new direction was more straight forward and direct, not giving up on the complex brutality of the earlier releases, just honing it into a razor sharp machine. Yes, they had melodies, but they always did and it was still aggressive as hell and Lindberg’s vocals were top notch.

At the time of its release the album was definitely acknowledged as being great, but no one seemed to realize it would become the most influential metal album of the 1990s. Judging by the fact that in 1996 At The Gates was touring as a support band and playing venues like the Berkeley Square (considerably smaller than the Fillmore) it was pretty clear people didn’t catch on right away.

As time went on the album was picked up on by a lot of people, but not in time for At The Gates to realize it. They broke up in 1996 after a ton of touring for the album. They knew it’d be near impossible to write an album as good again and there was starting to be “musical differences” within the band. In fact, that they broke up at their peak has over the years added to their “mystique” despite high visibility by nearly all involved (Skitsystem, Disfear, The Haunted and Cradle Of Filth) and none of their subsequent projects being anywhere near as good.

At The Gates came to be synonymous with the “Gothenburg Sound” of death metal, which is basically just melodic death metal. But aside from At The Gates almost every band ever called that has been total wimps and posers not worthy of the death metal label. Just look at In Flames for all the evidence you need; they’ve been carrying that banner ever since without a hint of the quality of At The Gates. There’s more fury in one At The Gates riff then the entire In Flames discography! The only Gothenburg band worthy to sit alongside At The Gates that had any integrity was the mighty Dissection who they toured the US with in 1996 opening for Morbid Angel.

Nowadays people call Slaughter Of The Soul the Reign In Blood of the 1990s. I don’t know about that, but there’s no doubt that it is a fan-fucking-tastic record no matter what the haters say. The problem, as noted above, is that too many people have ignored the other amazing albums they did, which was clear by the crowd in San Francisco, many of whom looked confused and bored when anything aside from Slaughter tunes were aired.
The debut Gardens Of Grief is super raw, dark and under produced, and only hints at the classy complexity of the bands first two full lengths. Lindberg’s vocals are more varied, going low at times and high others, similar to his days in Grotesque. The classic track “All Life Ends” first appeared on this mini-LP.

The first full length album The Red In The Sky As Ours is considerably different than Slaughter Of The Soul with supremely complex arrangements, tons of riffs per song, and even violins in a few places. It suffers from a shitty production, but the songs are killer nonetheless with brilliant stuff like “Claws Of Laughter Dead”, “Neverwhere” and the live favorite (at least for me) and set closer in San Francisco “Kingdom (fucking) Gone”. My vinyl version of this album remains one of the most cherished pieces of my collection.

The follow up to Red Sky (as it’s often known) was the much better-produced With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness. It introduced killers like “Raped By The Light Of Christ” which starts acoustically and breaks into some seemingly classical influenced riffing. Lindberg’s pained high rasps are in near perfect form, a very stark contrast to the then popular Stockholm low guttural vocal style. To ignore this album and Red Sky is an unforgivable sin of omission to anyone calling themselves a fan of this band.

Terminal Spirit Disease came next and its blistering title track clearly illustrated what was to come on the scene-changing Slaughter Of The Soul that came after it. Interestingly the band left Peaceville after Terminal and ended up on Earache who by that time were suffering from a serious lack of decent albums. It’s arguable whether they knew at the time they were about to get in on one of the most influential records of the decade, but once again Earache hit it big with Slaughter Of The Soul.

Anticipation was high when At The Gates announced earlier this year they’d reform for a final tour. Their logic was that they broke up under circumstances that left them feeling things were unfinished, so this tour was meant to close the book. No new music, no other tours (supposedly). Could they be as good as they were back when I saw them in 95 and 96?

The truth is, as good as they were back then (and they were fucking epic) they were even better in 2008. The band is acutely aware of their status as gods of the scene and the set did not spare the classics. Slaughter Of The Soul was played almost in its entirety and the entire crowd was going apeshit. They immediately ripped right into the fantastic title track, one that many count as their favorite, and proceeded throughout the night to play a few from Slaughter, then an oldie, then a few more from Slaughter, etc.

Now, despite the album’s influence, which I acknowledge absolutely, for me the earlier albums are the real jewels, and I was eager to hear which older tunes would be unleashed. Mostly it was the old tracks that also turned up as live cuts on Terminal Spirit Disease. The band probably figured most of the fans who only owned Slaughter were most likely to have Terminal if they had ventured to other albums (it being Slaughter’s closest relative both stylistically and chronologically). But the live older tracks from that album are some of the best from the earlier material like the aforementioned “Kingdom Gone”, “All Life Ends” and “The Burning Darkness”. With Fear’s “Raped By The Light Of Christ” and the Red Sky track “Windows” were also let loose. About three original’s from Terminal were also played. All in all it was about as good as it could get for a set list for both recent fans and long time ones like myself. I was especially stoked they ended with an oldie, which I think was a nod to OG fans. I awoke the next day to the worst bangover of my life, my neck completely thrashed and near broken.

Another reason I felt the need to write so much about At The Gates this month was I just finished reading the book Swedish Death Metal by Daniel Ekeroth. The book was just released domestically in the US this July, though it’s been circulating in Europe for a year two. The American version has the English cleaned up and some additional stuff absent from the Euro version.

Folks, this book is about as amazing a book as is possible for rabid Swedish death metal fanatics, of which I count myself as one. The thing is like 400 pages long with tons of interviews with members of Nihilist (Entombed), Morbid, Unleashed, Treblinka (Tiamat), Carnage, Dismember, Grave, Grotesque (At The Gates, Liers In Wait), Edge Of Sanity, Afflicted Convulsion (Afflicted), even punk dudes from Mob 47 and Asocial appear. Tons of old photos, flyers, demo covers, old zines and an exhaustive discography with knowledgeable and humorous opinions by the author.

The best part about the book is that it is written like a fanzine would be written. No over analytical bullshit or posturing on the greater meaning of it all. No intellectual ridiculousness about its artistic merit. Just killer quotes and honest death metal fanatic discourse from a guy who grew up with it and was consumed by it (like me!). No one is here looking for outside approval.

The book is published by Bazillion Points Publishing out of New York and their website is www.bazillionpoints.com. I would recommend this book not only to Swedeath maniacs but anyone into metal or hardcore, and especially anyone not yet familiar or just starting out with old death metal. This is the perfect place to get acquainted with the scene that helped create the modern metal underground.

The author also agrees with me that the best album ever produced by the scene was Entombed’s Left Hand Path. For me, not only was that the best Swedeath album ever, but the best death metal album of all time – the guitar sound, the songwriting, the production and the vocals are all picture perfect. Yes it’s better than Altars Of Madness and any album by Carcass or At The Gates.

Plus, the “where did the blastbeat originate” debate is given another twist by the author who claims the Swedish hardcore band Asocial was ripping the one beat as early as 1982, pre Siege, pre Repulsion, pre Napalm. The saga continues…!

Anyway folks, between the At The Gates show and the Swedish Death Metal book, I’ve been engulfed in the old all month and have absolutely ignored any new and obviously inferior weak metal these last weeks. I’ll be back next month to talk about some new shit again but we all know it’ll never match the power and brutality of old Swedish death!

Don’t Try, 120 State Ave NE #136, Olympia, WA 98501 USA, dontfuckingtry.blogspot.com, donttry@20buckspin.com