Album Rating: 4.5

ahrdwork m/

Album Rating: 3.0

ahrdwork m/ m/ m/

Album Rating: 2.0

piece of fuckin crap

Album Rating: 4.5

as a plumber I'm sure you've come across a fair share of crap

Sonic, you are a child, born of sin, you will reap what you have sown

Album Rating: 1.5

The fact that it took one of the greatest guitarists in metal starring on one of the songs here just to make it decent relative to the others is really something

Album Rating: 4.0

Just because this album inspired a ton of shit metalcore bands, doesn’t make it bad, just saying.

On a different note, the three first melodeath albums that mattered:

Slaughter of the Soul, The Jester Race, The Mind's I

Album Rating: 1.5

"Just because this album inspired a ton of shit metalcore bands, doesn’t make it bad, just saying."



That was an unfortunate outcome of this album but not really what I judge it by

Album Rating: 4.0

^^I know man, even though I humbly beg to differ.

I'm actually curious on the rationale behind giving this a 1.5 or a 2? It's a bit samey and has been overshadowed over time, but the energy on those opening handful of songs elevates it for me personally.

Album Rating: 1.5

"I'm actually curious on the rationale behind giving this a 1.5 or a 2? It's a bit samey and has been overshadowed over time, but the energy on those opening handful of songs elevates it for me personally."



Calling it a bit samey is an understatement if you ask me, it's rather one-note for the most part. As far as my overall rationale, it's sort of a problem of this album trying to be a medium between too many things and failing at pretty much everything when it comes to being engaging. It fails to have the dynamics and intensity of death metal. It falls short in terms of riffing and melody compared to any of the trad and thrash metal albums that it's obviously trying to draw from. Hell, a ton of OSDM has it beat too in that department, let alone their early work with Svensson.



I think the latter flaw is especially what put me off about the album entirely in my attempts to find something worthwhile in it. Compare this to By Inheritance, Night of the Stormrider, Endless War, etc. for thrash metal. Compare this to Keeper of the Seven Keys, Abigail, Perfect Man, etc. for traditional heavy metal and power metal. When I listened to this, I had already listened to all these albums prior and it felt comically insincere and limpwristed compared to all of them. It's not even just the writing either. The performances are similarly anemic. Svensson's absence in a lot of the riffing and harmonies is painful but obvious. The other part that's not acknowledged as much as is the drumming too. Listening to Adrian Erlandsson's performance here compared to the first two albums is just downright sad.

Album Rating: 3.0

This is incredibly underwhelming in comparison to With Fear or Red in the Sky.

Album Rating: 1.5

"This is incredibly underwhelming in comparison to With Fear"



That's kind of the kicker too. With Fear is the streamlined yet nevertheless great album by this band people claim this one is.

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

yikes

Album Rating: 4.5

oh lord

Album Rating: 3.5

band is the Ikea of melodeth. Jk, Ikea actually forces you to go through the whole thing

Album Rating: 4.5

This and Whoracle got me into Scandinavian metal back in 2000 so I owe a lot to this album, although I prefer the sound of Terminal Spirit Disease, wish they would have made a full length of that.

"it's rather one-note for the most part"

It's a fun note though

Metalcore is pretty cool tho

This album is important, but I don't really listen to it ever unless Im on an AtG binge

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

at the gates' first two ablums are a salad of great ideas and technical proficiency out the wazoo that are enjoyable in their own right but ultimately don't flow that well marred further by their tin can production values and lack of focus like they'll throw ten darts at a board at once just to see what sticks while only one or two of them manage to not fall flat. streamlining their songwriting at the cost of some blast beats and tempo changes is a small price to pay for terminal spirit disease and slaughter of the soul being infinitely better sounding ablums with actual flow and substance beyond just guitore and droms go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr