At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul (1995) Reviews
From the moment the guitars come crashing in on "Blinded By Fear", At the Gates are on a mission to make two worlds collide. The darkness and aggression of underground death and thrash metal (unrelenting fury and speed)..... and the structure of standard rock/punk music (short, melodic songs built around hooks). Astonishingly, the Swedes managed to mold these constituent elements together so well that it sounded like something completely new itself.
As with most innovators, they inspired many imitators who tried to emulate the formula (looking at you, American metalcore scene) with this album. But, to this day, I'm not sure I've heard another work that is as catchy - yet also as thunderously heavy and seething with anger - as Slaughter of the Soul. It's amazing to hear the contrast. All of the songs are only 2 or 3-something minutes in length, and they just keep hitting - one after the other - of precise, catchy as hell, yet sinister, riffs, leads and delightfully memorable scream-along vocal refrains. Are you even a metalhead if you haven't screamed "THE FACE OF ALL YOUR FEEEAAARS!" or "SICK AND NUMB, BY FEAR I FALL!" or "I FEEL MY SOUL GO COOOLD!"??? In this way, it feels like a pop album because the songs are all so short, refined and catchy. But it's laid on top of a foundation of Anders Björler's guitar melodies, often tinged with haunting notes of sorrow and despair, which create a spine-chilling contrast with Tomas Lindberg's vocals, which are pure fire-spitting fury. There's no room for other emotions than these. It's pure adrenaline, rocket-fuel for catharsis via mosh pit.
Thus, I suppose Slaughter of the Soul can be seen as Melodic Death Metal's Reign In Blood. It is an album with a singular mentality and compact songs that are criticized as "repetitive" or "filler" by people who just aren't as impacted by the visceral feeling unique to the album. Personally, I love both. I also love At the Gates' earlier work, particularly The Red In The Sky Is Ours, which is very different in its more unpolished, artsy and avant-garde approach to Death Metal, but you almost have to view this At the Gates as a completely different band from that At the Gates. Don't ignore this album because of any elitists who tell you that it's a sold-out or dumbed-down version of At the Gates. The band never sounded tighter or more aggressive than they do here, and simplifying their already-stellar songwriting down to only the most impactful components made for a historic and memorable album that will never be replicated. Strong 9.
Favorite songs: Blinded By Fear, Slaughter of the Soul, Cold, Under a Serpent Sun, Unto Others
Ignore the naysayers, Slaughter of the Soul is an aggressive and well-crafted masterpiece.
At the Gates' first releases didn't impress me much. Here was a band that could certainly write some decent riffs, had some excellent drumming and a vocalist that could tear your skin off from 100 metres away. But while they showed good enthusiasm and talent, they lacked focus to pull it off. Both The Red in the Sky is Ours and With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness contained more riffs than you could poke a stick at, but the end result were incohesive and fairly forgettable albums. 1994's Terminal Spirit Disease displayed a new At the Gates and the first sign that they were about to do something big. While the album was a bit disappointing due to its length (only 6 new tracks), what it did present was powerful, melodic and tight death metal. The band appeared to be readying themselves to hit the big time, but nothing prepared me for just how massive they would become!
Let's get something straight about Slaughter of the Soul. It may be considered melodic death metal with all the negative connotations that can go with that subgenre, but it packs a serious punch. It grabs you by the throat immediately and doesn't let go until its 35 minutes are up. It may not contain an awful lot of variety during that short running time, but it breaks things up with some excellent atmospheric instrumentals and most tracks are extremely memorable. No track goes over 4 minutes, so there's absolutely no messing around. Anders and Martin pull out a seemingly endless supply of cool, shredding riffs while Tomas screams his guts out with a venom most vocalists can only dream of. But you hardly have time to focus on all the little details while experiencing this album. You're just swept along by the aggression and catchiness of it all.
Slaughter of the Soul is one of those albums that receives unfair criticism from both those who blame it for the onslaught of clones (and the dreaded metalcore genre) that would populate the metal community after its release and those that don't appreciate that melody has a place within the confines of death metal. I don't fit into either of these crowds and proudly state that this is one of the defining and best albums released in extreme metal. It's immensely entertaining stuff, with cracking riffs, truly vicious vocals and a production to die for. Along with Dark Tranquillity and In Flames, At the Gates were brave enough to take death metal into uncharted territories and good enough to take it close to the mainstream. But it's clear the band weren't just in it for the popularity or the money as they pulled the plug immediately after its release, going out at the highest point imaginable. Ignore the party poopers, Slaughter of the Soul is a great album that you'll go back to time and time again.
At the risk of becoming increasingly repetitive, At the Gates are yet another band I have encountered on my journey through death metal's beginnings, about whom I know very little, despite previously having seen their name all over the place. This time, though, after actually listening to them, I am not filled with the feeling that I have been missing out. It's not that this is terrible or anything like that, in fact it is extremely tight and aggressive. It's just that, to my untrained ears, it sounds like an awful lot of the metalcore that I have encountered whenever I have ventured into Revolution territory and as such it doesn't really float my boat that much. From what I gather, this was enormously influential and a pivotal release in the development of melodeath and the "Gothenburg Sound", neither of which I am much of a fan of, so it was always going to be a bit of a reach for me.
On the plus side, the riffs come thick and fast and, at times, are fairly memorable, even though the guitar sound is of the Entombed / Dismember, heavily distorted Swedish style of which I am not the world's biggest fan. The rhythm section of bassist Jonas Björler and drummer Adrian Erlandsson work really well together and sound like a very tight unit, providing a lot of muscle to back up the frantic riffing. I don't really go for the hardcore-derived vocal style of singer Tomas Lindberg, I much prefer my death metal with the gutteral growls of Reifert, Vincent and Chuck to this "shouty" style which very often rubs me up the wrong way wherever I encounter it and is probably the most offputting aspect of the album for me.
I can definitely hear how influential this album has been upon not only no end of melodeath wannabees, but also on the development of metalcore, the earliest practitioners of which must have been well acquainted with this. I would have to say that this is a very good example of a style of metal that I am not the biggest fan of and, a bit like my attitude towards Trivium's In Waves, it is an album I would probably only return to when I was in a mood for something different from my usual fare, acknowleding it as important in the development of metal and being enjoyable enough in it's own right, without it really resonating with me on a personal level.