Slaughter of the Soul

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

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 14, 1995)
• Original Release Date: November 16, 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Earache Records
• ASIN: B00000584I
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #214,420 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Blinded by Fear

2. Slaughter of the Soul

3. Cold

4. Under a Serpent Sun

5. Into the Dead Sky

6. Suicide Nation

7. World of Lies

8. Unto Others

9. Nausea

10. Need

11. The Flames of the End

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

After riding the coattails of their local heroes Entombed for the first half of the 1990s, Gothenburg, Sweden's groovy At the Gates hit full racing power in 1995. For a brief while, the Slaughter of the Soul release almost single-handedly supported the flagging death metal scene, ushering in a second wave of metal energy that lives today in bands like the Haunted, which features ex-members of At the Gates. While respectful of the religious intensity of labelmates Morbid Angel and Carcass, At the Gates was a slightly more domesticated beast. Weaving melodic textures into its assault, the band slowed its tempo to something less diabolical, winning over large audiences who craved metallic intensity but were turned off by the Satanism and blood worship of the outfit's contemporaries. Sadly, the band broke up in 1996, but its deeply infused union of death metal, melody, and boogie remain distinctive several years later, even overshadowing the sparser but similar efforts by the Haunted. Six bonus tracks on this reissue of Slaughter of the Soul--including frantic 1995 demo tracks and cover songs from Slaughter Lord and Slayer--sweeten the pot while presenting At the Gates at its pinnacle. --Ian Christe

Product Description

Reissue of their 1995 CD includes DVD with six bonus tracks and new artwork and liner notes by Tomas. The all time classic from Swedish Death Metal gods At the Gates with a bonus DVD. This is the band's first time ever on DVD format. The DVD features a brand new exclusive 35 minute documentary - 'The Making of Slaughter of the Soul'. The documentary sees the band return to Studio Fredman with producer Fredrik Nordstrom, as they reveal the full story of how their masterpiece was recorded. Includes bonus features such as the promo video for 'Blinded By Fear' and deleted scenes. At the Gates has long been revered as the blueprint for Swedish Death Metal in particular and is a noted influence on all of the current metalcore bands including Trivium, Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intense, landmark album, December 29, 1999

By 

"[e-mail]" (mi) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slaughter of the Soul (Audio CD)

Unknown to many, the best metal of the last half of the 90's has come from Scandinavia, particularly Sweden. This now-defunct band was one of the first to break out internationally, with a style that combines death metal, Slayer, and Iron Maiden with original European influences. At the gates defined a distinct guitar sound, playing lots of notes in their riffs instead of just chords, hitting on a technical and varied sound that almost makes you forget this is extreme death metal. Tempos are almost all fast, thrashing insanely along with those galloping riffs. And the whole thing just knocks you over, this being the perfect blend of aggression and technicality. Before this album, I disliked most death metal, and couldn't stand non-singers, but this album's high-pitched screaming vocals are comprehensible and fit the music so well that they actually turned me into a fan of this style, and the lyrics are better than most death, exploring psychic pain and anguish instead of guts and gore. A great album, and unfortunately, the band's last. The drummer, bassist, and one of the guitarists would later resurface in the similar but not as good The Haunted.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Almost too good to be true, December 7, 2002

By 

Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slaughter of the Soul (Audio CD)

I wrote a four-star review of this album a while ago, saying I didn't find it as good as advertised, but since then I've come to appreciate it a lot more. Although the songs on "Slaughter of the Soul" are very accessible by death-metal standards, thanks to ample doses of melody, it's really the album's complexities that make it great. And while these nuances may not be readily apparent, given time they all emerge and come together to form one amazing album. Eventually I was able to appreciate the subtle changes in tempo, the killer guitar harmonies, the absurdly tight drumming, and the melding of melody and heaviness that At The Gates put into their music. The opener, "Blinded by Fear," crams about as much speed, heaviness, and intricacy into three minutes as is humanly possible, and the album rarely misses a step after that. And topping it all off is Tomas Lindberg, a unique vocalist whose throaty scream perfectly matches the intensity of the music. Now, making it even better, is a reissued version with some extra goodies for us fans. "Legion," their cover of a song by a band called Slaughterlord, is an excellent thrash song with lots of heavy riffing. "The Dying," the unreleased track from the "Slaughter of the Soul" sessions, isn't quite as good as the songs that made the album (makes sense) but it still rips. The real highlight of the extra tracks, though, is At The Gates's cover of Slayer's classic "Captor of Sin." With Tomas doing the vocals, it sounds as every bit as vicious and scary as the original (it's also nice to hear the band doing full-on guitar solos). There are also demo versions of the songs "Unto Others" and "World of Lies," which have a rawer (and in my opinion better) sound than the versions on the album. As a whole, the bonus songs make me more than happy that I traded in my copy of the original version of this album to buy the reissue. I encourage other fans to do the same.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but..., June 2, 2002

By 

Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slaughter of the Soul (Audio CD)

Well, I've listened to this album a number of times now, and it's proven difficult to come to a verdict on it. This album's hype and reputation precede it, and as in many cases it's been tough to reconcile an album's reputed greatness with what I actually hear coming from my speakers. Sure, the guitars are great, with lots of nice riffs and some terrific harmonic parts. The songwriting is also strong, as the band manages to inject melody into the death metal style with very little adulteration of the music's brute force. However, the bass is too often missing, and I don't find the drums to be anything especially interesting, especially not in comparison to the work of masters like Gene Hoglan, Pete Sandoval, and Paul Bostaph. This is definitely some high-quality music, but I don't see what makes THIS album more special than some of the other stuff that's come from Sweden in the past decade or so. At the Gates do, of course, deserve some credit for influence, as this album clearly provided at least a substantial part of the impetus for the direction Swedish metal took starting in the mid-1990's. Still, I just can't help but feel that this stuff has since been bettered by bands like Opeth, Amon Amarth, and The Crown; not to mention the fact that Death were churning out higher-quality progressive death metal years before "Slaughter of the Soul" came out. If you want to hear something in the same vein as this album, pick up the latest release from the Crown, "Crowned in Terror." That album features a more energetic vocal performance from Tomas Lindberg, as well as a lot more bass and vastly superior drumming.