At The Gates
Slaughter of the Soul

THE REVIEW

I couldn't do it again. In fact, worse... this isn’t a double review, it’s a triple review (wow...). And to think I believe I have good reasons for doing it! (but it's five in the morning)

The reasons, essentially, are two. Namely, the already existing reviews of this album. With all due respect and esteem to the authors (even if I may not share their tastes), but honestly, I think saying that Slaughter of the Soul (the album in question) represents something more than an "essential purchase for every true metalhead" or "the Swedish Death Metal. Period" is warranted.

Whatever genre this dear band is proposing (one of the bands that marked my growth) I couldn't care less, I'm not even interested if now every week a band comes out citing In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, and Death  (bands I mostly respect and/or love) among their inspirations and then churns out a fresh Slaughter of the Soul every month (something that led many fans to a curious reaction, namely repudiating this last album of the band and praising all the previous ones... ugh). I don't care even if in '95 they made an album that after 12 years - 12 most (for me all, but I want to try to be objective) of the bands that followed in the footsteps of At the Gates can’t match. I don't give a d***n that now melody is everywhere in metal, and that Meshuggah, who use just tonal dissonances, are more progressive and experimental.

What matters here is that this is excellent music. It’s music played with passion, with heart. It’s music played with relentless dedication and deep participation, these guys aren’t five frustrated teenagers because last month their allowance was cut (and here I might seem offensive, but naturally I'm deliberately exaggerating...). There are five people behind this album - two guitarists, a singer, a bassist, and a drummer - and all of their commitment is there, despite this world, beyond all pessimistic, optimistic, or realistic (i.e., pessimistic) considerations, may have tried to discourage them.

Art, besides meaning, is also the medium that brings to us (the audience) the meaning of the music, the artistic expression of the band. Therefore, I won’t tell you how wrong it is to choose a nihilistic lifestyle, or how it might instead be the only sensible solution, or how I don't care. These are personal matters, everyone decides (and the rest of the world says 'who cares?'). So I prefer to talk to you, to conclude, about the medium, this bridge, this means of communication (= art, indeed) that the songs contained in this album represent.

What to say. If I wrote with the same skill, passion, incisiveness, and stylistic coherence with which At the Gates wrote this album, forget Debaser, I’d be the direct heir of Scaruffi*.

Unmissable, sublime, grandiose, nihilistic, take all the adjectives you like, go search on Ondarock reviews, on Truemetal, in the dictionary of synonyms & antonyms (an effective method this...). And you'll never exhaust your search. This album is everything and nothing. Give it your meaning.

* it's a joke. Humor, present?