AT THE GATES — The Red in the Sky Is Ours (review)

AT THE GATES — The Red in the Sky Is Ours album cover Album · 1992 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"The Red in the Sky Is Ours" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act At the Gates. The album was released through Deaf Records in July 1992. At the Gates was formed in 1990 after Grotesque disbanded. They were part of the very fertile Gothenburg scene of the early 90s, which also spawned artists like In Flames and Dark Tranquillity.

While At the Gates are often mentioned among the forefarthers of the melodeath style, the music on "The Red in the Sky Is Ours" is not melodeath by any means. At least only in very small portions. There are plenty of melodic guitar themes featured throughout the album, but the music on this particular At the Gates album is a much more eclectic size to be just labelled melodeath. The album features elements from technical death/thrash metal, melodic death metal, blackened death metal, and even a couple of nods toward folk metal. The latter is only true when the band incorporate the use of folky violin playing a couple of times during the playing time, but it´s there and therefore a part of the sound on the album. The blackened edge mostly stems from Tomas Lindberg´s singing style which is a higher pitched growl than your usual more deeper growl, but also as a result of the often dark and mystic atmosphere of the music. I´m sometimes reminded of artists like Unanimated and Necrophobic. But then the band also mix in melodic guitar themes and quite technical death/thrashy riffing/drumming, and it´s hard not to get the feeling that the album is a bit "all over the place".

Stylistic inconsistency can be a huge issue for some releases, but At the Gates somehow manage to pull it off convincingly. So even though it´s obvious the band were pretty immature composers at this point, they still have so many great intriguing songwriting ideas, and a passionate, skillful, and convincing delivery of those ideas, that "The Red in the Sky Is Ours" is overall a pretty strong debut album. I´m even ready to forgive the rather thin and not too well sounding production, because of the creativity on display here and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.
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