At The Gates
Terminal Spirit Desease

The first time I listened to it, I let myself be literally carried away, all in one breath, without paying attention to the tracks or the passing time on the player (just as it should always be).
At a certain point, when I realized it was over, there was almost a startling awakening inside me. Indeed, because it doesn't even last thirty minutes, a span of time in which At The Gates demonstrate all their class, and contrary to what usually happens, in this case, just 6 songs (I don't consider the other 3 as they are live performances of old tracks) are more than sufficient to express a positive and complete judgment.

And, despite its brevity leaving you with a bit of bitterness, rationally you understand that perhaps it's better this way, a little but good. That is, the sensation aroused is that of wanting to deliver a strong scratch of novelty and then disappear leaving only the mark. A peculiarity, that in a broader sense involves the entire band outlining its character traits, also demonstrated with the subsequent breakup after the release of the last (master)work. A bold choice, although debatable.

I can state without a shadow of a doubt that many bands that we today call clones, famous or not, consciously or not, pay a deserved tribute to these six tracks. It is not uncommon to listen to metal band demos, where after the first thirty seconds one of the melodic riffs from this album comes to mind, making you think: "I've heard this before".
And if the following work is an undisputed masterpiece, considered by many the bible of melodic death, it can certainly be stated without risk that even this one, although not considered as much, is a cornerstone of the genre, and (if I may), if you don't want to regard it as another "bible," you can always give it the title of "Manual of Melodic Death - how to".

In my opinion, its only misfortune is being the prelude to "Slaughter Of The Soul" just a year before, and therefore vastly overshadowed by the beauty of its successor. If you don't feel like, or don't have the time to listen to it all, or you think this is just the usual review praising the group in question, just listen to the song "Forever Blind," it alone represents everything I've reported in a few (and hopefully good) words: short, intense, technical enough, and melodic. If you're approaching the genre, you can't avoid this obligatory stop to understand who (among the few) truly boasts its paternity.