Customer Reviews

Slaughter of the Soul (Bonus Dvd)

5 star:		(99)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

If there ever was an essential purchase for a death metal fan this album would be it. In the roots of the New Wave of Swedish Death Metal, At the Gates stood high above the rest. Although somewhat comparable in brutality and catchiness to "Clandestine" by Entombed, "Slaughter..." has much stronger songwriting and much more tighter and well-constructed songs. The sound here is fast, razor-sharp duel-guitar harmonies, pounding double-bass and shrieking, ungodly vocals. There's not a bad cut on the record even though some of the luster wears off by the end. At the time this was released this was the most brutal and complete death metal albums I had ever heard. If you don't own this, but it now.

At The Gates high point in their career was at the release of this record, Slaughter of The Soul. If you listen to even one song off this record you will know why. Although, Grunge was the new fad ATG stood strong and brought another unrelenting and speedy Melodic Death Metal record to have you bang your head. A timeless recording by a timeless band.

Now this is a flat-out thrash album, the little tremolo picking that was present in TSD is also gone, save for on `Nausea'. Lindeberg's vocals are more constrained - no longer the uncontrollable gurgles and screeches they once were. The lyrics are also minimalistic, not as wordy and poetic as in the past. The new style has also constricted the drumming to the boring snare-bass pattern rather than the complex patterns and fills from TRITSIO and WFIKTBD. There are two ways you can think about this album - a) mourn over the loss of a unique death metal band that managed to capture dark, pensive moods with nihilistic death metal; or b) celebrate the birth of one of the best Swedish thrash bands. I do enjoy this album and consider it one of the band's best works, but don't let anyone fool you into believing this is the only album by the band worth your time, definitely check out the immensely under-appreciated TRITSIO because that showed the band at it's most original.
Highlights: Blinded By Fear, Cold, World Of Lies, Unto Others

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If you consider yourself a melodeath metal fan, or if you're a newcomer, it is absolutely mandatory that you're familiar with the following four words: "Slaughter Of The Soul." If there ever was a classic in this genre, this album, the fifth studio release and fourth full length from At The Gates, is it. This record did the same thing for melodeath that "Reign In Blood" did for thrash. It's often thought of as being the epitome of the genre, because of its importance. It almost single handedly created and established the Gothenburg metal sound. It has influenced almost everybody-from In Flames (who are also a highly influential melodeath group), to nine-out-of-ten modern American metalcore bands (Shadows Fall, for example).

"Slaughter" was also probably the heaviest melodic metal album to be released in the 1990's. Every song on here is very scorching and infectious, and loaded with propulsive, attacking the jugular rhythms, fiery, bludgeoning riffs, catchy, ferocious guitar leads, fast, thumping (at times pounding) drum patterns, winding, careening (albeit brief and un-complex) guitar solos, and high-pitched, black metal influenced, almost Death or Kreator-esque vocals from frontman Tomas Lindberg.

The pounding, blistering, lead-off track, "Blinded By Fear", is one of the album's highlights, but every track is essential listening. "Suicide Nation" is a good representation of the disc as a whole, since it's one of many brutal songs on here with a breakneck tempo, blowtorch riffs, blinding guitar leads, and a wild guitar solo to cap it all off. The title cut is fueled by scorching, propulsive guitar shredding; "Cold" boasts a brutal, surging guitar and pounding drum attack, including a brief, skillful drum solo and a melodic guitar break around two minutes in; and "Into The Dead Sky" is a slow, serene instrumental interlude with clean guitar strums and whooshing background noise (bands like Killswitch Engage probably got the idea for an acoustic interlude from this song.) And, lastly, "Unto Others" is a particularly attention-grabbing, memorable, and infectious song, because it includes a somewhat pretty flamenco guitar interlude.

If you buy the reissue (which you definitely should, and probably will because the original version of this C.D. is very hard to find), you'll get six extra songs which make for a great listen and are essential for your collection. These songs are "Legion" (a Slaughterlord cover), "The Dying" (an unreleased track from the "Slaughter Of The Soul" recording sessions), a Slayer cover of "Captor Of Sin", two 1995 demos (one is of "Unto Others" and the other is "Suicide Nation"), and "Bister Verklighet," a song originally done by the band No Security.

If one had to find fault with this album (aside from that the guitar solos are nothing really special), it would be that it sounds a little dated by now. It has aged very well, but if you're already initiated with melodic death metal, or if you've been listening to metalcore for the past several years, "Slaughter Of The Soul" may have a very small initial "wow factor" on you. But this isn't At The Gates' fault-how were they to know that a countless number of other bands were going to cop their sound? In fact, if you listen closely to a metalcore album, you should be able to hear that some of the riffs on that album have been lifted wholesale from "Slaughter Of The Soul". Thus, this record might take a little while to grow on you, but you still need to own it. If nothing else, at least buy it so you know where melodeath began, and so you can say you have a complete collection. And if you're new to the genre, there's no better place to start than right here.

The majority of metalcore bands stole their sound from this CD. This CD is a classic in the field of melodic death metal. The guitar solos are nice and technical, the riffs are killer, and the vocals are awesome. Too bad most of the metalcore bands stole their sound and made it all mainstream. This band broke up before the metalcore surge. If you want metal that is fast yet melodic, this CD is for you.

The worst thing about At The Gates is that they split after touring for this album...why?! To form The Haunted...they're really cool...but not as much as ATG were! This cd is the death/thrash/melodic album! It breaks out with great energy right from the opening track "Blinded By Fear" and the band keep on playing fastly and furiosly during the whole cd-lenght. Definetely there are not many technical elements...but they're not intended to be in a context like "Slughter Of..." ...the hell, we're not talking about poor music at all!!! I think you do not need very much technique and arabesque musical textures when you're in front of such emotional/intense/aggressive riffs! A bit of "roughness", and believe it's a shame talking about this album in these terms, is consideralbe in death/thrash stuff...isn't it?
Last but not least we're pleased to introduce Mr.Andy LaRoque on the "Cold" guitar solo...a piece of art! There's anything more to say...put it on your cd-player and start a violent pogo against the walls of your room!

Okay, the previous (negative) reviewers have all pointed out how this album is not as technical or as original as their earlier work. Having recently acquired the progressive With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness, I'll agree that Slaughter of the Soul's monolithic tempo, repeated riffs and conventional rock song structure don't match up to the weird, almost hiccupy changes in tempo, odd song structures, constantly changing guitar riffs and moments of shear silence on the previous album. There's nothing as blazingly original here as "Raped by the Light of Christ" or "Non Divine." Indeed these guys just don't -do- as much in three minutes as they did before.

But what this album lacks in technicality and progressiveness (proginess?) I'd argue that it makes up for in its sheer melodic/harmonic catchiness, a catchiness that leaves At The Gates' brutality untouched. It's an achievement that I can think of only one other band achieving in metal history, one that, like At the Gates, flirted with mainstream success but never quite made it: Testament, with their first album, The Legacy. No, At The Gates don't sound like Testament, but the combination of catchy melodic/harmonic hooks and aggression is what made The Legacy so great (along with Alex Skolnic's guitar solos, of course).

As with the Legacy, the fairly monolithic pace of Slaughter of the Soul makes it unrelenting in its assault. Far from making it less brutal, the catchiness of this album even enhances the brutality by boring the dark riffs and relentless rhythm into your subconscious. This, the wonderfully agonized vocals and the just-fuzzy-enough production make the album quite atmospheric, evoking inklings of some combination of despair and homicidal frenzy. It's not nearly as claustrophobic, frenzied or despairing as the greats of Black or Doom metal like Esoteric and Weakling, but the songs are catchier and more accessible and thus the atmosphere rubs off on you more easily. But then you'd hope it'd be brutal by as much as looking at the track list.
Speaking of which, if you don't want to read about the album in detail, skip to the end of this review. When I say something is `great' or awesome, I mean it simply sounds good. As I admitted before, this is not a very technical album.

Standout Tracks
"Blinded by Fear" is as wonderful an opening track as you can ask of this album. After a suitably ominous electronic fuzz and spoken-word clip it establishes the driving rhythm of the album and its dark atmosphere with great guitar riffing. There's a very brief bridge/solo in the last minutes, but it's extremely brief and doesn't make this song any 'slower' or more subtle while giving it a melodic edge that such a blunt instrument would normally lack. 5 stars

"Slaughter of the Soul" starts off with a very short, heavy intro section before going into the song proper. This is every other song on the album in a nutshell. Things are always changing enough that you don't get bored, but not so much you can't follow them. There's a really great interplay between the two guitars so that they compliment each other rather than dueling in total over-the-top metal fashion. 4 stars

"Cold" features a great solo and more fabulous guitar work, to the point it stands above the other excellent material on the album. 5 stars
"Into the Dead Sky" is a nice quiet instrumental interlude between musical blows to the face. It's not great and of itself but it fits perfectly. 4 stars

"Need" is in my opinion the best song of the album. Nice and varied, going from melody to melody on brutal guitar riffs until it fades out, almost serenely, into a single glockenspiel over silence.

So yeah. 11 catchy, brutal tracks together make one of the most accessible and most influential albums of the 90's. In addition to their Gothenburg contemporaries and successors it had a massive impact on metalcore-listen the Darkest Hour's The Mark of the Judas and you can't hope but hear the shadow of this album. In terms of making serious metal accessible, this album knows few peers save The Legacy by Testament and The Sham Mirrors by Arcturus. Indeed, I'd say that with this album At the Gates invented pop death metal, which is no mean feat.

I don't recommend this if you require your metal to be extremely technical (Opeth) or experimental (Ephel Duath) nor if you prefer it so raw that it sounds like it was recorded in bear's cave in some Scandinavian forest (Burzum, Leviathan) or so brutal that it makes you're eardrums bleed (Pig Destroyer). But if you like metal and you like good conventional rock songwriting, this is a treat.