Gothenburg: City of Screaming Statues (The Red In The Sky Is Ours - At The Gates)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	The Red In The Sky Is Ours - At The Gates
Date:	30/01/08 (24 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Classic experimental death metal album, and At the Gates' best.

Disadvantages: Some progressive touches aren't as well incorporated as they would like to be.

One of the most celebrated forefathers of melodic death metal, At the Gates were the more aggressive of the Gothenburg group comprising their contemporaries Ceremonial Oath, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, holding more firmly to their hostile death metal base and electing not to indulge melody and folk influence to the extent of those other bands. Whether this makes them the most authentic or simply the least inventive of the melodic death pioneers is down to each listener to decide, and while I don't enjoy their relentlessly harsh magnum opus 'Slaughter of the Soul' as much as I do the more balanced and compelling classics of the other bands in the field, this 1992 album introduces At the Gates as a more experimental band taking its influence from all branches of death metal without being confined to as-yet-uncreated genres.

'The Red in the Sky is Ours' has the fresh, bold and often amateurish sound of a band that doesn't yet know what it wants to be when it grows up, and the progressive structures, radical time shifts and frequent jazzy refrains from the bass and drums align this with technical death metal from the likes of Atheist and Cynic, without going all the way and denying listeners the pleasure of the more straightforward death metal that comprises the majority.

The typical At the Gates aggression is still present here, but in a less intrusive style more along the likes of fellow Swedes Dismember, complete with occasional flourishes of lead guitar and solos definitive of the Gothenburg sound. Anders Björler's lead guitar is excellent throughout, from the standard death metal riffing that drives most songs along to the appearance of the more sombre melodies in 'Through the Gardens of Grief,' culminating in the doom-like melancholy of 'Within,' likely the finest song here as well as the most complex, and atmospheric tremolo-picking solos that give a weird watery effect to 'Windows.' There's also a long-awaited, all-out, squealing death metal solo in 'Claws of Laughter Dead.'

The despair factor isn't as prominent here as in more dedicated doom metal bands, mostly relying on hostility, but 'Within,' 'Neverwhere' and the soft interlude 'The Scar' all succeed in creating a bleak and depressive atmosphere through the guitars, Tomas Lindberg's vocals and Gesper Jarold's violin. Jarold is the key player here in marking this album out as distinctive, making his presence felt right from the first song which effectively ends after three minutes and gives its final minutes over to a folky violin solo that bears no relation to the previous material at all. 'Within' really brings the emotional potential of the instrument out, making its final minute one of the most incredible in all of melodic death metal, while 'Neverwhere' sees Lindberg's pained roar reaching its desperate peak.

Lindberg's popularity is well deserved, and even though I've never been fond of his rasping, monotonous shout on later albums, here he's almost unrecognisable, still yelling with intensity but also with added pain evident in the style of depressive black metal, making for a more involving and less alienating experience than 'Slaughter of the Soul,' and just one of the ingredients that makes this a much better album.

The album's progressive/technical/jazz tendencies are perhaps the main obstacle to this receiving wider acceptance, and while they don't deliberately alienate all but the most prog-minded of listeners in the way masturbatory tech-death bands easily do, the sudden lunging into bass and drum frivolity does occasionally seem... well, frivolous. All the same, it's great to hear the bass as a prominent instrument, and although fast, dynamic drums are a vital element of death metal, the legendary Adrian Erlandsson puts in an incredible performance throughout.

If you only buy one album of pre-melodic-melodeath this lifetime, well, you're probably best off with Dismembered's 'Massive Killing Capacity.' But after that, you should get this.

1. The Red in the Sky is Ours / The Season to Come
2. Kingdom Gone
3. Through the Gardens of Grief
4. Within
5. Windows
6. Claws of Laughter Dead
7. Neverwhere
8. The Scar
9. Night Comes, Blood Black
10. City of Screaming Statues

Summary: At the Gates' first album (1992).