Spotlight: At the Gates

So here we go with another spotlight, this week it is At the Gates. ATG was the first real death metal band I really enjoyed. To be honest, I'm not sure how I got into this band. If I was to guess I would say it was because of The Haunted. You see The Haunted was founded by 3 members of ATG. I will have more on The Haunted later on in the year, so let's stay focused on ATG.

ATG play a genre of death metal called melodic death metal. I'm not to sure what makes it melodic, I would probably say it is the guitar work...very NWOBHM twin guitar sound going on. Musically, ATG is for ANY classic thrash metal fan...Metallica to Megadeth to Slayer, you would love this music. I would say the hard part for most would be swallowing the vocals. Tomas Lindberg has a unique sound to his screams. They aren't deep death growls, but rather a sort of drowning screams...definitely unique.



Unfortunately, this band disbanded after their classic album Slaughter of the Soul. When I talk about classic albums, this one is on there. I would say it belongs in the same category of a Master of Puppets, Peace Sells, Reign in Blood...a definte classic. As I said musically, it is class bay area thrash with tight guitar solos and solid drumming. That would be the one positive of this band is that the drumming isn't the insane blast beats that never slow down, it is actual drumming going on back there.



As I said earlier after ATG broke up the guitarists and drummer went onto form The Haunted. The lead singer went onto a bunch of other projects, nothing coming close to ATG until he joined Nightrage. Their first 2 albums sound like a continuation of ATG, more on Nightrage later.

Playlist for the week:
Monday: The Swarm, Terminal Spirit Disease, Forever Blind from Terminal Spirit Disease
Tues/Wed: Blinded by Fear, Slaughter of the Soul, Cold from Slaughter of the Soul
Thursday: Legion, World of Lies, The Dying from Slaughter of the Soul
Friday: Drug, Descent onto Chaos, Being Nothing, from Nightrage's Descent onto Chaos