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At
this point in their career The Gates of Slumber could
shit in a box, have it dried up and flattened, then
trimmed into circles and shipped to music
scribes only to get giant kudos from those in the know and
then some more from those in the mainstream. Sure, all the
kudos, ass kiss and admiration is deserved. Look at
their discography. Check out their sound and pay
attention to what metal sounds like in Brooklyn and
Peoria nowadays. If you are smart enough you’ll be
quick to notice that this Indianapolis trio not only
broke new ground by walking an already down-beaten path
when it just wasn’t fashionable, but that they simply
outsmarted the rest. When everyone was thinking that
true heavy metal was nothing else but a fucking joke,
Karl Simon was already rocking his hair and belly to a
few Germans. For that, we need all to be whipped at
least three dozen times. We ain’t nothing but bitches of
The Gates of Slumber.
A couple of
days ago I went on a record shopping spree rampage that lasted
the better part of two hours (hey, what are you gonna do? I got
obligations!). At my last stop I was lucky enough to spot a copy
of The Awakening, the band’s godly debut from 2004. (It was my
birthday and that felt like a gift from god.) I am thinking this
band was heavier back then. At least much more doom in the full-sensical
meaning of the word. That album is a mammoth. You only need to
get past the average muddy sounds to fully appreciate the songs.
A couple of years later, it wasn’t even Stoner Rock.com who was
picking up on their rocking tunes. Suffer No Guilt was unleashed
by I Hate records out of Sweden. Skeptics could no longer play deaf cunts.
Hipsters got on their knees by Conqueror, an album so
undeniably metal we all had to bow down.
Only a year
and some later we are regaled with Hymns of Blood & Thunder,
another almost magnificent album of majestic metal. In several areas
this is their best album. The excellent natural production of
Sanford Parker gives the band the weight deserved and the crunch
that could have brought them more attention from the start. Now
aided by the reputation of Lee Dorrian’s Rise Above and a
stronger PR machine, this could be the momentum this band needed
to be glorified. Ok, not so much. This is so purely metal that
it won’t get more airplay than a couple of spins in some
specialty college radio show. But The Gates of Slumber deserve
all that they can get.
The songs of
Hymns of Blood & Thunder are big. Not bombastic but big and
everlasting. The riffs are grand display of men who have
mastered the art of metal. Manowar could only dream of writing
songs as triumphant as “The Doom of Aceldama”, with the slow
pace pick up on its last minute. The strongest songs are the
first three. “Chaos Calling” is standard up tempo heavy metal
guitar, but who else in metal has this panache? No one. “Death
Dealer” is relentless and “Beneath the Eyes of Mars” offers six
minutes of keyboard aided guitars and a chorus so heavy it can
only try drag its feet onto the next tune. Hymns of Blood & Thunder
is a solid
record. As good as anything an American doom band is capable of.
It’s not stronger than The Awakening though. That album just
shits heaviness.
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