Deserted

Arizona's Gatecreeper are just one of those bands, that get spilled into your Spotify or Youtube algorithm. You heard the band name many times, but never actually checked them out. With the sheer mass of emerging modern death metal bands I always wondered what all the fuss around Gatecreeper was about? A few months after I asked myself this question I found their 2019 release "Deserted" in a tiny record store somewhere in New Orleans. This time I made sure I got my hands on it and finally lift the secret around this band. After re-listening this album for what feels like the 1000th time, I can say that Gatecreeper are just okay. Not more, but certainly not less. But do they life up to all the hype they get? Hell no, I can't see it! At least not when listening to "Deserted".

The album's name is, in fact, ironcally fitting for a piece of modern death metal that leaves you stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere emotionally and atmospherically. It just feels like Gatecreeper want to do too much, too quickly. And when you do too much, too quickly it becomes messy, when it becomes messy the listening pleasure gets spoiled. You can see where I am going with this: this release has no clear path to follow and subsequently it lacks a lot. Melodies? Yes there are a few. But are they coherent? No, most of the time they aren't. High quality lyrics? Not really. Storytelling? I can't see it. Brutality? Yes, but it doesn't immerse you because again, this album is lacking too much. Highlights (Puncture Wounds, Barbaric Pleasures) are followed by let downs that are either too long to work (Everlasting, Sweltering Madness) or are too simple/stupid in terms of songwriting/lyrics (Ruthless). Also there are songs that are just average in my opinion (Anxiety). Putting these at the end of the album doesn't really help the overall quality.

But there are really some things that are a glimpse of hope. For example the vocal range of frontman Chase Mason is amazing. His consistent output helps to push the overall composition quite a bit. I also have to admit the serious talent behind the guitarists, there are some neat solos scattered througout all 11 tracks. I watched their live performances online and it just seems like a band that is better live than they are on their releases.

If we come back to "Deserted" I can conclude, that this is not a fun release by any means. Up to today I am finding it incredibly exhausting to listen to all tracks without skipping or switching to a completeley different one. I am really sorry for you diehard Gatecreeper fans out there: this one is just what my rating of 55% says - slightly above average. It is lifted up by the vocals, the production and some highlights in terms of musicianship. Else, this one would rank way lower. I am still hoping to catch the guys from Arizona live one day, maybe they can change my mind if they deliver on stage. For now I have to put this release fairly low.

Gatecreeper is a very consistent band, and as time went on we would see this band continuing to improve on their sound and evolve. This leads us to their sophomore album “Deserted”. An album that is in line with what they were doing on previous EPs and “Sonoran Depravation”. But this time they add tons more variety, melodic, and doom aspects. But still staying true to their roots as an osdm band. As well as maintaining that Swedish death metal/hardcore sound. Here is where we see Gatecreeper beginning to truly hone in and mature their already heavy sound. While also adding more flavors that would beef up the record.

From the beginning, I remember seeing that this album was way longer than the debut record. There are also more songs on this album. So rather than being 31 minutes long with 9 tracks, “Deserted” offers 10 (11 if we count the bonus track) songs spanning almost 45 minutes. With this in mind, that means all these songs have much more variety and time to breathe. While the debut didn’t necessarily dwindle in enjoyment due to not being bigger and bolder. It’s cool to see this band continue to grow their music and sound into something better.

The opening song which is the title track immediately hits with a very slow and doomy start. This album has a lot of slower beats and sections alongside the brutality that Gatecreeper has always maintained. D-beat-laden sections and chuggy riffs appear more often. These moments focus more on the mid-paced side. One thing this album adds is more leadwork and soloing. You also get more of those Dismember-like melodies in songs like “From the Ashes”. The faster songs still remain intact as well.

There are tons of grooves and rhythms here as well. Showing that this band hasn’t lost a single ounce of intensity. Songs like “Puncture Wounds” and “Ruthless” still give you that straightforward attack you’d expect from Gatecreeper. You still have that crunchy tremolo riffing and double bass work that remains very pummeling. And don’t worry, there are still tons of old-school death metal mayhem and breakdowns to be found here. They haven’t gotten rid of their old gritty Swedish death metal influences and sound. This album is just much more mature and bigger, it is also more precise and melodic than previous releases by the band.

The guitars have also taken a much more wide and diverse approach. Tons of old-school tremolo riffage are on here and are very similar to Incantation. Jack and Eric are both great guitarists and use those chunky palm-muted chugs to attack the listener. Everything is on a much more refined and consistent level here. This is still a very straightforward listen as breakneck grooves and thrashy riffs are still here. The compositions they make are very pummeling and punishing. Showing off how they can continue to write hooky and memorable songs.

Atmosphere is another thing this album plays around with. This adds a bit more depth which makes the album more punishing. Another example of this album incorporating melodic riffing is on the song “Everlasting”. The leads and melodies sound something straight off of “Massive Killing Capacity” by Dismember. I bring up this album every time I review this band, but I can’t help but feel that they have so many songs influenced by that album.

Vocally we see Chase Mason broadening his voice more than ever. His vocals sound amazing and energetic, while also adding new sounds to his already unique voice. He utilizes a lot more higher shrieks than ever before, but his hardcore shouting and low growls are still present. However, he does manage to deliver some very lot cavernous gutturals that he never really did before. You also have the trademark “blegh” pop up here and there. Typically during a big breakdown or in the opening of a thrashy section.

Let’s talk about the gnarly production now. The production here is way bigger and better yet maintains a very raw feel. The guitars will always have that HM-2 feel to them that extreme metal freaks will drool over. They have a nice thick tone that doesn’t take any prisoners. The drums and the vocals are loud and cavernous which makes the music more dirty and atmospheric. This whole album as whole seems like it was dragging through caves filled with dirty and rotting bodies. It has a very nasty and chainsaw-like sound that I love about this.

The drums on this record make up the backbone of this album. The performances here are very tight and well-written. There is a wide variety of hardcore drum beats and old-school double bass. The drums are played on a wide scale of fast, mid-paced, and slow-paced tempos. The more hardcore beats are also shown in the form of sludgy d beats.

Overall this is a great follow-up to the fantastic debut album. It shows the band growing as songwriters and musicians. While also staying very true to their brutal and old-school death metal influences. If you love Gatecreeper then you’ll love this album. If you’re looking for an album with more varied songs and broader expansions give this a listen. But if you also want the primitive sound of the early material that’s also here. So it’s the best of both worlds. Give this album a spin. Great shit.

After dropping what was perceived by many as a modern gem with their debut, Gatecreeper are back with their sophomore album of crusty, d-beat, death metal delights.

Doomy guitars and drums bring in a fine blend of cavernously meaty soundscapes to start us off with totally gripping atmospheric death metal prowess. There is a savagery to the stomping grooves, accentuated by the violent vocal spewing that soon joins the mix, which is delivered with a crushing production, encapsulating all of the ferocity that Gatecreeper have to offer. The cacophony of rhythmic HM-2 riffing and thunderous bass backed by pummelling drum hits is balanced beautifully by the ripping vocals and blistering lead shreds that makes a contrast between Swedish chainsaw bite and American brutality, with some tasteful hardcore influenced d-beats to further toughen the blow.

There is an unrelenting forcefulness to the music of Gatecreeper and it is with great joy that I can remark this album picks up where "Sonoran Deprivation" left off, only with added crusty viciousness and a slightly more doomy approach (maybe drawing on their love of doom metal that Spirit Adrift has clearly shown marvellously) which is certainly not a bad thing as this record is dripping in the ooze of morbid atmospheric delights while keeping the fierce bite that we all have come to expect from them. While there is plenty of atmosphere, the record still definitely has a very to the point feel which I must respect, this material is all killer with no filler, but doesn't sacrifice any of the nuance, in fact showing a greater sense of melody within their songwriting than ever before. "Deserted" takes everything that was good about "Sonoran Deprivation", ups the anti and ferocity, delivering a decimating assault on the senses packed with exciting grooves, macabre vocals, pounding drums and with a disgustingly punky attitude to top it all off. Gatecreeper have delivered a firm middle finger to all the naysayers about their filthy, crusty death metal craftsmanship. This has a little bit of Bloodbath, a little bit of Hooded Menace and a huge slathering of Gatecreeper's signature spewing that altogether makes a gorgeously balanced, primitively destructive and instantly loveable opus of truly astonishing death metal brilliance.

A must listen and an instantly classic release among 2019's powerful catalogue. Do not miss out on this scathing slab of Death Metal malignity.

Written for www.nattskog.wordpress.com

Arizona's finest Gatecreeper return with their 2019 sophomore release, Deserted, an album which shows the band tweaking and evolving their sound by improving their songwriting and adding more interesting details to their original formula of riffy death metal first seen on 2016's Sonoran Depravation, which, while extremely fun, suffered from being a bit too one dmensional and lacking variety. Deserted builds on the extremely solid foundation laid by its predecessor without losing what originally made Gatecreeper appealing to begin with.

The album's opens up with the title track, "Deserted", a slow-to-mid paced crusher that gives us a taste of what we're going to be getting throughout this album and some of the new elements introduced to their tried-and-true formula. The song actually has some leads in it and a solo, things that were originally seen on the Sweltering Madness EP, which released 2 years prior. It is then followed by "Puncture Wounds", a more straightforward cut reminiscent of what we saw on the debut, proving that they haven't forgotten how to write punishing death metal riffs.

Those two are then followed by the best tracks on the album, "From The Ashes" and "Ruthless", the former of which has some excellent riffwork, with a breakdown around the halfway point that slowly builds up with a lead to a fantastic melodic riff that still maintains its headbanging capabilities, while the latter opens up with a bass break and moves at a faster pace than most of the tracks on the album.

The closer, "Absence of Light" is also worthy of mention due to its doom influenced riffs and solemn tone, which is a perfect way to close off this album.

While the album is very consistent all around, it's not without fault, as there are a couple of tracks that aren't all that interesting, such as "Barbaric Pleasures" and "Sweltering Madness", the latter being taken from the EP of the same name. Both of these cuts don't really do anything interesting and feel like they're sticking to a rather formulaic structure, and they should have either been cut out of the album or replaced by tracks such as "Mastery of Power", the other track off Sweltering Madness, or the digital-only bonus track, "Anxiety".

Lyrically the tracks have quite a bit of variety, ranging from isolation and decay (Deserted), to more gore influenced lyrics typical of death metal (Puncture Wounds, Ruthless, Sweltering Madness), sex (Barbaric Pleasures), despair and suicide (Absence of Light), and even some eldritch horror on "Everlasting", and Chase Mason does an exceptional job with his delivery all across the board, taking a new approach to his vocals by adding a bit of a hardcore bark to his previously unintelligible grunting, which I personally enjoy quite a bit, although it might not be for everyone.

Production wise the album has some differences in comparison to its predecessor, namely the guitars, which have more of an HM-2 buzzsaw sound reminiscent of Entombed, the drums are pummeling and clear without overwhelming anything in the mix (courtesy of Kurt Ballou of Converge fame)and the bass actually has a place in the mix now and can be heard, and while it doesn't do much of note for the most part it does add to the desolate and heavy feel of the album.

Deserted is an album that shows us a band growing and maturing, honing and improving their craft as they move on in their path as musicians, and showing us that they've quite a bit to prove to their followers, and perhaps even detractors, by not resting on their laurels with their first success, but instead opting to try something new with their music.

Highlights: Deserted, From The Ashes, Ruthless, Absence of Light

Deserted is the second LP from Arizonan death metal band Gatecreeper. This album has a lot to offer, being quite an enjoyable listen, and has garnered a fair amount of hype, but also has a fair amount of problems, having its disappointments since its a pretty celebrated album.

The album is very diverse, in the sense that there are many different types of riffs, ranging from fast to slow, to even some melodic riffs. I enjoyed listening to the variety of riffs, and the band has its obvious influences (such as Entombed, Bolt Thrower, etc.), and it can definitely be heard throughout the album. Some listeners may not enjoy this, as they would see it as unoriginal, but I enjoy how they take elements from different bands and fuse them together. A standout of this album would be the guitar tone, as it's brutal and instantly grabs you by the ear. However, this guitar tone got a bit tedious throughout the album, but if you enjoy the tone of an HM2 pedal, then the guitar tone is definitely for you. The vocals were also very enjoyable, and I had no problems with them as they fit the music perfectly, the same applies to the drums, however, I feel like the drums could've been a lot more interesting.

The album did have its fair share of problems though. In my opinion, the bass was barely audible, and I feel like I would've enjoyed the album a lot more if the bass was turned up slightly. I also feel like there aren't that many memorable moments in the album, probably the only one I could think of is the outro to "From the Ashes". Also, since there were both slow and fast songs, I feel like they should've started the album with slower songs and ended it with the faster songs to go out with a bang, but that's just personal preference.

Overall, I really enjoyed listened to this album, although I did have a few gripes with the album, for example, wanted the bass to be louder and a lack of "memorable moments". If you enjoy death metal, then I highly recommend listening to this album.

Since I heard the single "Boiled Over", Gatecreeper's sophomore album Deserted was automatically scheduled to be one of my early October jams. To keep things simple, Arizona's death squad regurgitates an old-school style that swings between Bolt Thrower and chainsaw pioneers Entombed, while also incorporating some Celtic Frost aesthetics, which adds a particular twist to their sound. The band reaches 2019 with an album, two EP's, and several splits under their belt, establishing themselves as one of the most solid American old school death metal acts of the second half of the decade. Although I've already heard some tracks from these Arizona's creepers, it was only after "Boiled Over" came out that I was really interested in exploring the band's discography, which I found interesting and worthy of recognition by the underground OSDM community.

The first thing that stands out in Deserted is its more polished sound compared to previous releases, revealing the band aim to take a step forward, thus showing a greater maturity in its stylistic approach. This evolution, however, doesn't give up either the band's DNA or its main influences, which remain well present, but with a slightly different appearance, as a style facelift that embodies the band's aesthetics in 2019. Gatecreeper's praise for Celtic Frost is still present in songs such as "Ruthless" or "Sweltering Madness", which proudly carry the avant-garde old school spirit, yet always shaped around the band's signature, without ever being a cheap, purposeless copy paste. The Left Hand Path-esque chainsaw also remains ubiquitous, but now with a less Sunlight Studios' tone, thereby adding greater personality to its sound. The band is in its full artistic maturity, feeling broadly comfortable with its current musical signature, which explores numerous textures orbiting a common core. The stormy Slayer-esque "Puncture Wounds", and the following "From the Ashes", which features a melody reminiscent of Running Wild, are two good examples of this diversity. This kind of contrast is proof of the band's wider range. We never feel stagnation or monotony in Deserted, the songs were meticulously arranged in order to create different pulsations throughout the album. The opener title track is the first indicator of this stylistic diversity, which extends to songs such as "Everlasting", "In Chains" or "Boiled Over", which are not limited to a one-dimensional output, the latter featuring the album's most memorable riff. Despite its greater diversity, Gatecreeper's straightforward approach hasn't been disregarded, as we can hear in "Barbaric Pleasures", that mirrors an interesting simplicity and the band's concern with bridging the past. The doom signature is another constant in Deserted, a structural element present in almost every song, assigning density and atmosphere to the overall aesthetic, that is also enhanced by an excellent production, which brings out the massive rhythmic section, that sometimes sounds like a well-oiled pneumatic hammer.

Deserted is a multifaceted creature that mirrors a band at its creative peak. It's a lament that boils slowly until it's finally swallowed by time and desolation, but its echo will endure as one of the greatest death metal moments of 2019.

Their debut album didn't sell me, the song writing was decent but I wasn't digging the style. The hard core vocals and feel at times just didn't do it for me. They were slowly rising through the ranks of extreme metal between then and this newest release. Now they have a rabid fan base and this album is starting to earn it but still suffers from being such a bland listen.

The style has some doom and death metal mostly, but more distracting, as was the first time for me, was the hard core aspect. From the vocals, to the guitar it's obvious there are links to Throwdown, Hatebreed or Harms Way. It's like a slower hard core. "Ruthless" being their most death metal song, will appease some but these moments are not altogether common. The best vocals are on track 7 which features the most experimentation. Maybe I'm mistaking that with variation. Yeah, he just pills out all the tricks in his hat.

The guitars are simple and barbaric. There's very little finesse or impressive playing. That wouldn't really fit the style, so I can't knock them there, It's just not my preference. "In Chains" is a good example of this. The tones are great, whether it's the crushing chords or the sauntering leads layered on the top. "Absence of Light" has a decent lead section. Again, nothing impressive but a nicely produced frosting. The first riff that stands out wakes me up is the main riff on "From the Ashes" and I really like what the high end is doing in conjunction with the low end. They do play with dissonance on “Boiled Over”. "Absence of Light" introduces some melodic moments with the leads more so than other songs. It has the most emotion out of all of them.

The drums suffer the same knuckle-dragging fate. They're stripped down to match the guitars and the style employed still hits home to the hard core sound. "Ruthless" is their most consistently fastest song, but even then drums are just does up a little and not any more complex. There are little bits of flair here and there in the form of fills but they aren't meaty enough to hook on to. There's a few blast beats peppered through when the guitar changes to tremolo chugs. “In Chains” features some nice variation and experimentation more so than on any other song.

Fortunately, the song writing is decent. At best. They can make an almost or unique catchy song with only the most basic of building blocks of music. This is the pop music sensibility, though. Maybe this is why they have a far-reaching audience. Post Malone apparently listens to then among others in the non-metal world. Each song tends to have one element I appreciate and then the rest of the song is just a little over average on its writing. They aren’t all that catchy or interesting but just decent enough to listen to. It's an interesting concept to have a death metal cosmetic but the inner-workings of a more popular and digestible structure. It's like what death core did in the early/mid aughts, but more subtle here. Hey, maybe this will bring in more listeners into metal.

Favorite tracks:
-Sweltering Madness
-From the Ashes
-Absence of Light

Technical skill: 29% Originality: 62% Song writing: 61% Production: 65%

Gatecreeper are a band that have a small surge of hype around them, and considering they’re coming to my home-town, I felt it my duty to look into them. Their second record Deserted is a specific slice of Swedish-style death metal despite being based out of the United States. They’ve got every trope; buzzing and crushing guitar tones, OSDM riffing, and an echo cast deep into the production. This style is something that I dig, despite an annoying bounce in the drum-tracks and small hints of polishing. Much like the horrid hangover I’m currently experiencing, Gatecreeper do not leave a good feeling in my gut.

While I wouldn’t say this is the worst thing on the planet, serviceable moments are minimal. “From The Ashes” boasts a strong riffing sequence. The tremolo and drum eruption at the end are easily the highest point, and let on a small taste of melancholy. One of the biggest issues with Deserted is that it offers nothing interesting. Spinning the same old wheel is fine, but it does need to stand out with something. “Puncture Wounds” suggests a slight change in direction by upping the energy levels following the empty title track. Sadly the vocals tarnish it, which is the second big issue here. They’re throaty, and seem caught in a state between “growl” and “yell” that comes off as an awkward hardcore-like outburst, growing tiresome quite quickly.

Which brings us to my third issue, that obvious hardcore influence. As the record progresses, this shows more and more to the point that when you reach “Absence Of Light,” it feels like a very different effort. That song is about as trudging as it gets. “Sweltering Madness” is another rough one, being a drawn-out mess of chugs, topped with unpleasant hacking outbursts.

Don’t read my wrong, this isn’t enough to make it a deathcore record, but I can’t say I like it much better either. There’s a lot of strong rhythmic presence, but it couldn’t hold my attention for very long and it slowly evolved towards a style I dislike. For no reason other than getting your curiosity fix, I do recommend checking this out (and hey, maybe you’ll call me crazy and love it). I’m sure they’ll also cast a fun presence in the event of the live performance. But as for an album that’s talked about in high regards, I was greatly disappointed.

Originally written for Antichrist Magazine