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At the Gates > Slaughter of the Soul > Reviews > DagZeta
At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul

Seriously Guys... - 91%

DagZeta, February 4th, 2012

This is one of those albums where you either blindly praise it and take its popularity and importance far too much into consideration or you despise it with every fiber of your being just because everyone else like it. OR you can do what I did and think for yourself and bring yourself to objectively say "I like this," or " I don't like this." Seriously though, if you really think about it, you should like this. Slaughter of the Soul is a fantastic album!

*Army of haters closes the page*

For those of you still with me, I'd like to point out that when you really think about it, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE GOTHENBURG SOUND!! Be honest, how many melodeath bands from Gothenburg are there let alone bands that people know or care about?! First three that come up, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates... and uhm... Dimension Zero, oh wait, that's Jesper Stromland and Glenn Lungstrom (pretty much In Flames). Uhm... Gardenian? Wait, not many people know or care about them. So, the three left that matter... they all sound completely different. In Flames had a lot of melody and those folksy acoustic guitrars, DT had a lot of really technical riffs, and At the Gates had the anti-religious, misanthropic brutality. Yet for some reason people seem to group these bands and pretty much any band that decides to abandon some of the death in death metal for melody (*sarcasm* How could they?!?!) into a category they consider "stereotypical Gothenburg bullshit." I sigh at these people. Onto the music.

As the band states themselves in the lyric book (in the DVD bonus rerelease version at least), they wanted to open this up with a really catchy thrasher. "Blinded by Fear" more than succeeds. The song is intense througout, has one creepy part, then explodes into one of the catchiest and to the point leads I've heard in a while. Plus, it's worth mentioning that the lyrics are incredibly memorable and flow very well.

This sort of thing happens throughout the whole album. The songs all have intensity, catchiness and well thought out riffs. Though, I will say that I think the intro riff to "World of Lies" is kinda stupid. Other than that, riffage is all good and each song is distinctly different than the others. On top of that, the leads are fantastic. Notable mentions other than the one mentioned earlier are "Cold" and the title track in the lead department.

Vocally, Lindberg is going all out here. Unfortunately, I think the vocals feel very produced. I know how great the vocals are out of the studio, and I think the extra production was unnecessary. So, basically the vocals are great, but thehy could have been just as good without the production.

The rhythm department is tight here. Drumming keeps a thrashtastic rhythm going and doesn't obnoxiously show off, which I feel far too many drummers do. And the bass manages to keep the guitars going strong while not trying way too hard to be in the front. Though, I must complain about the fact that it feels like bass doesn't add much to the composition of the music and stays as support more than it should.

The two instrumentals on the album are fanfreakingtastic. "Into the Dead Sky" is a perfect breather song and has some of the most beautiful acoustic work I've heard outside of Opeth songs. When the other instruments come into the mix, it comes together perfectly! And the closing track is creepy. Creepy in an atmospheric way. It's simple, yet it's meant to be! Quite possibly the best closer they could have come up with. I feel that it would be the perfect background music to watching the entire world crumble. Perfect moment that just makes me stare blankly at my hand thinking, "Whoah..."

Seriously though, this is probably At the Gates' weakest effort BY FAR. I don't blindly love this album, and no one should. But I don't blindly hate it because it's actually good! Seriously haters, get your heads out of your asses.

Get the bonus tracks version if you can. It's kind of a short album and the extras are awesome.