The Red In The Sky Is Ours [Original recording reissued, Extra tracks]

At The Gates, ????????? | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 12, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Extra tracks
• Label: Peaceville UK
• ASIN: B0000ADYBG
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,932 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars oui oui, June 20, 2007

By 

Lord Chimp (Monkey World) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red In The Sky Is Ours (Audio CD)

everyone who has ever explored Swedish death metal has At the Gates' _Slaughter of the Soul_, or at least had a metal-loving friend play it for them. that's a bloody good metal album! and rightly considered a classic. yet surprisingly the band's most startling and unique release is their obscure debut, _the red in the sky is ours_.

first i want to say that if you have read negative reviews of this album ignore them completely. I think there is something of a cop-out in saying, as some critics have, that this is some kind of "Entombed clone" or that it's immature. At the Gates is possessed of an impetuous musical ambition of the sort usually only found in the youngest metal bands, but they have crazy chops and progressive songwriting skills beyond their age. A valid comparison would be the earlier Dark Tranquillity albums - fast and tremolo-y, with an explicit melodic focus -- but at the same time being thrashier & deathier, with more of a tech/progmetal angle, and a violin. Jespers the violinist contributes a unique quality to about half the songs, fr'example with florid solos ("The Season to Come") and lamentful leads during an ultra-melodic metal fadeout ("Windows"), and fast trills with galloping double-bass and dual guitar leads ("Neverwhere"). Very unusual, and it is implemented with faultless taste. The songs are longer on average than their later tracks, with movement-like structures, spastic time-changes, and lacking the typical metal motivic progression. The riffs are completely deranged, the dual guitar playing evil and tight, and the drumming some of the most complex and impressive in the style. it may sound incoherent at first, which is perhaps why many reviewers dislike this album when compared to their strike-n-recoil tracks on later discs. The variety is also remarkable. When you hear songs like "Claws of Laughter Dead" (sic) and "Neverwhere" you'll at times think you were hearing something like Atheist; when you hear "Within" you'll wonder why this album isn't revered in underground prog-metal circles; and when you hear the short, weird "The Scar", with its unsettling whispers and electronically processed dual guitar constructions, you'll feel a shiver pass through your flesh. The production would be dated out of context, but most of the early albums of this style sounded like this so it's basically idiomatic and suits it rather well. If you are looking for some of the best, "old style" of Gothenburg metal then don't forget to pick this up with your Dark Tranq and In Flames albums.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SOTS is killer but its a shame that ATG's 1st 2 get ignored, September 10, 2004

By 

James Cox (Rumson, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red In The Sky Is Ours (Audio CD)

Everybody always raves about Slaughter of the Soul, and I guess I can see why, as I was one of those people.... but ATG's first 2 albums, once you let them sink in, are easily ATG's best 2 albums, and not only that but they are 2 of the greatest metal albums of all time. I didn't like this too much upon first listen, and while I love Slaughter of the Soul, I never considered ATG one of my favorite bands. "The Red In The Sky Is Ours" and "With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness" changed that. "The Red In The Sky Is Ours" is certainly ATG's most technical, twisted, and brutal album, but still has loads of excellently used melody and it never falls into "wankery" (bands trying to make music as complex as possible, but sacrifice SONGWRITING and end up making garbage) as it seemed to me upon first listen.

The majority of this album is based on 2 guitars weaving in and out of each other in brilliant fashion. Riffs range from melodic tremolo picking to energetic and "exciting" riffs to very odd and twisted riffs that make you go "???".... The guitar interplay is so deep on this album, there is so much to hear and will have you coming back again and again. The production is very raw and leaves the guitars very thin, but whats important is that they are clear and the production is adequate for an album which requires clarity in each guitar note. Song structures are complex and will be a challenge for the listener early on, but once they begin to settle in the music is all the more rewarding for this.... The arrangements seem so clever and limitless in comparison to the verse-chorus-verse structure of SOTS, as this makes for an unpredictable album where anything goes. Not that there's anything wrong with verse-chorus structuring, but in the end it just seems that the most satisfying music is the more adventurous music. And The Red In The Sky Is Ours is one adventurous disc. Put it on, you will be pummeled immediately by the brutal title track.... So you know what you are in for, and the rest of the album is one hell of a ride.

Favorite tracks: Within, Claws Of Laughter Dead, Neverwhere, City of Screaming Statues

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Red in the Sky....the Twillight is ours!", April 21, 2003

By 

mindyourownstuff - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red in the Sky Is Ours (Audio CD)

"At the Gates" are mostly remembered for their final album "Slaughter of the Soul" which had an enormous impact on the swedish scene and spawned a lot of (mostly deeply inferior) immitators who unfortunately gave the term "melodic death metal" a bad name by constantly dumbing this blend of music down to happy-go-lucky singalongs. None of this rather perplexing evolution is at the fault of At the Gates of course, "Slaughter of the Soul" is a great album that was also my introduction to the band and it's still miles above the kindergarten-metal it, unintentionally spawned.

Their debut is quite different. Totally maddening upon first contact, there isn't much that will stick in your head after the final chords of "City of screaming Statues" blast out of your speaker for the first time. The band's intention clearly seemed to be pulling out a more "progressive" blend of death metal, different from most other swedish bands around that time. As if the weird structure of the songs was not enough ( there are more breaks and tempo changes in "Claws of laughter dead" alone then on the whole "Slaughter of the Soul" record), they deceided to grace their sound with the use of a violin in some spots, adding an entirely different dimension to the already quite "far out" sound on the album. This does not make for an easy listening experience, especially when you expected an album as straight forward as "Slaughter of the Soul".

"The Red in the Sky is ours" sounds almost jazzy in some places, and it takes a lot of time before you finally get used to the sound. But once you realize what the band was doing on here, it's nothing short of awsome. While not as technically able as on their later work, the band's ambitious trying of working Iron Maiden-like guitar melodies in the traditional swedish deathcore sound shines through in the brilliant "Kingdom Gone". "Neverwhere" is a masterpiece of structure, just like "Within", "Claws of laughter dead" or the hyper-blasting title track (which, after 2 minutes of total ear carnage flows right into the violin piece "The season to come").
Though limited in technical abilities, the band plays strongly together, there are almost no solos or leads on the album but still, it's a thick wall of sound despite it's abstract structure.

Frontman Tomas prooves that he's truly a poet among the writers of lyrics, and despite any concrete sense of just how to take his words, the lyrics of this album are fascinating to read (some of it was also written by Alf, one of the guitar players). He would go on writing even crazier stuff on the band's follow up "With fear I kiss the burning darkness", these swedes sure know their mushrooms. His poetry adds to the music perfectly, making "At the Gates" a real one of a kind band.

In the end, this album is not for the squimish. If you want a collection of catchy tunes in a death-metal shell, look elsewhere. If you are willing to give a record time to manifest in your head and you love your death/doom/grind/metal than run, don't walk and pick this album up before it's unaviable. You'll be rewarded with one of the best genre albums to date.