Review by Ben for At the Gates - The Red in the Sky Is Ours (1992)

This is a tough album for me to review. I love Slaughter of the Soul and admit to approaching the band's earlier albums long after they were released. The Red in the Sky is Ours doesn't sound very much like the aforementioned classic, having a lot more tremolo riffing and a far rawer production. At first, I must admit to being extremely disappointed. Tomas' vocals are a lot weaker than on later releases and, as someone mentioned below, he comes across as a poor man's Varg Vikernes (from Burzum), but in the completely wrong environment.

The songs are a bit all over the place too, coming across as a bunch of riffs randomly thrown together instead of the immensely tight, structured outfit that they would become down the track. While there are numerous enjoyable riffs, I find it difficult to enjoy whole tracks, let alone recall them later. Finally, the playing is a bit sloppy at times, which when combined with the raw production, generally doesn't make for an ideal death metal basis.

This said, after a few forced listens I’ve found quite a few diamonds in this rough. Within and Neverwhere are really quite good and many other tracks have some enjoyable moments. But it's not enough for me to understand why so many consider this to be a classic death metal album, nor how anyone could call it At the Gates' best release. It's a decent debut that displayed potential, but just doesn't come together to form a great whole in my opinion.