This is just a rip off of All That Remains but without the good parts

Album Rating: 4.5

TheAntichrist dropping some hard hitting truth bombs.

Album Rating: 4.5

yeah, the antichrist nailed it (lol)

Album Rating: 4.5

heh

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

nice

Album Rating: 3.0

Where is Casavir and park when you need them

this album sucks because Burnfart Gunshot did it first in 1969

lol Luca what a loser

Album Rating: 4.5

@Kusanagii casa has already said his piece on the last page. learn to read.

Album Rating: 3.0

I always found it interesting how divisive this album is with it being one of the most-referenced albums in melodeath alongside The Jester Race and The Gallery. I'm personally on the side of someone thinking it's okay but I can also see why someone would prefer The Red in the Sky and With Fear more (because hey I'm also in that camp).

Album Rating: 3.0

Its far better than TJR

The Red In The Sky < 3333333

Album Rating: 2.0

a velvet creation >

lunar strain >

highway to hell >

Album Rating: 1.5

"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"



I'm going to be honest with you, I wrote this entire thing about how saying those first two albums lacking focus is a vapid critique and how they obviously have a clear musical focus but that'd be waste of time. No, instead I'll tackle the ridiculous idea that Slaughter of the Soul and the prior album streamline anything. Streamlining implies that there's some kind of filing down of the sound they initially started with. That is not the case.



A lauded aspect of this album is its brevity. Let's interrogate that. Compare any song from this album to any song of a comparable length from With Fear like Beyond Good and Evil. Listen to the way riffs and melodies develop. Listen to the drumming. There is no way one could bend over backwards and try to tell me that the same band that wrote that song also wrote this album. Virtually everything that made them unique (and I do think this band's 1991-1993 era was unique) has been cut out entirely in favor of an understanding of melody and songwriting that would have been regarded as retrograde 5 or even 10 years ago compared to any band that was worth a damn.

Album Rating: 4.5

"I'm going to be honest with you, I wrote this entire thing about how saying those first two albums lacking focus is a vapid critique and how they obviously have a clear musical focus but that'd be wasted on you"



why are you so confrontational? it's an interesting discussion, there's no reason to be rude

Album Rating: 3.0

Our savior @Casavir FeelsStrongMan

Album Rating: 1.5

" why are you so confrontational? it's an interesting discussion, there's no reason to be rude"



You're right. I changed what I said. Antichrist isn't really deserving of the dismissal anyway, I'll save that for...others.

Good discussion.

Album Rating: 4.5

I actually agree with Cas that ATG's earlier material is better than Slaughter, but I am not really understanding the argument against call it streamlined. I'm pretty sure they band themselves have hinted, if not flat out said they wanted to simplify their sound for SotS.



I also think it's weird to accuse of them not being unique, b/c what else sounded like this in 1995? Of course now the style has been imitated and done to death, but was this not just unique albeit in a different way?

Album Rating: 1.5

"I also think it's weird to accuse of them not being unique, b/c what else sounded like this in 1995?"



Well, a lot of the most godawful parts of Purgatory Afterglow, Heartwork and Unbound (by Merciless) have a lot in common with this album, in my opinion. Those all predate SOTS by a year or two.



"I actually agree with Cas that ATG's earlier material is better than Slaughter, but I am not really understanding the argument against call it streamlined. I'm pretty sure they band themselves have hinted, if not flat out said they wanted to simplify their sound for SotS."



Well, them streamlining their sound on this is the claim that Antichrist is making and my point is that even that is giving the band as they were on SOTS too much credit as nothing that was good about them before remotely translates to this. Sure, they may say that they wanted to do something simpler but all the other circumstantial evidence points to the fact that they had lost the strongest member of their band and they themselves could offer nothing as an adequate replacement for that kind of influence.



I think Alf Svensson was also the only one to hold the other members (and maybe Erlandsson too at the time) to any kind of artistic standard from '91 to '93 which is probably why Tomas and especially the Bjorlers were so quick to throw him and the work associated with him under the bus by saying that they were "trying too hard to impress people" with "weird songwriting and too many riffs". This is made even more obvious by Anders Bjorler going on to do bargain bin thrash metal with The Haunted, which is basically identical to this where the debut is concerned.

Album Rating: 4.0

What I remember reading about this album back in the day, was that At the Gates were in dire straits while working for it, because their earlier albums had gone unnoticed at the time.

When Slaughter of the Soul was released, they were essentially disbanded, so that’s also telling about their huge potential, even at the end.

Analogous was the situation with Carcass and Swansong.