The Gates Of Slumber
Conqueror

THE REVIEW

Each musical genre carries with it a multitude of emotions and different sensations, in which the listener immerses themselves with delicacy. Sometimes it happens to me that with a genre like space or ambient, I get lost in another dimension; metal gives me that power you might need every day, rock an unusual cheerfulness. Yet The Gates of Slumber have managed to create in me something that had never happened before knowing them. It might be the acidic sounds of Karl Simon's voice and guitar, or the exasperating slowness of their sonic glass... The fact is that the Indianapolis group manages to evoke, with its sparse and somewhat raw sound, a world on the edge, lived by society's derelicts, the annihilated. It is the complete opposite of "classic" doom, that is, the one by Candlemass, My Dying Bride, where the annihilated is the man, now alone against everyone. For The Gates of Slumber, it is the whole that is now rotten, crumbling under the same violence of the human animal, with its beliefs, its personal wars, its religions...

Here, in summary, are the main themes on which "Conqueror" stands, the third full-length of the American trio (Karl Simon voice and guitar, Jason McCash on bass, and Bob Fouts on drums). To address these themes, in their rough and "raw" way of looking at life, they chose as the character of their album Robert Ervin Howard, an American writer considered the father of the movement called "heroic fantasy" and who has in Conan, a character created by Howard himself, his ultimate "hero." It is Howard's world that is used by The Gates of Slumber to contrast with ours: Conan lived in a backward, underdeveloped society, yet the characters inhabiting it acted naturally for the good of all. Today, although the world is in "evolution" compared to Howard’s barbaric era, people themselves are the ones who have changed, becoming machines of power, catalysts of wealth.

This is why humanity is trapped within itself and cannot find an outlet from its web ("Trapped in the web"), while Conan's bestial world is so vivid that it is palpable, far from corruption, despite its strangenesses ("Conqueror", "Ice worm", "To kill and be king"). In "Children of Satan", the band lashes out against religions in general, and the sense of oppression they give people.

An album laden with meanings, therefore, embellished by the typical sound of the trio. A separate note goes to the concluding mammoth "Dark Valley Suite", which is more tied to the existential doom of bands like My Dying Bride and Solitude Aeturnus. The central break is a dark lament with which one descends into the abysses of a world forgotten by God. An infernal paradise where the surrounding landscape leaves no hope at all.

It's all over...

1. "Trapped In The Web" (4:57)
2. "Conqueror" (8:15)
3. "Ice Worm" (5:19)
4. "Eyes Of The Liar" (7:21)
5. "Children Of Satan" (7:18)
6. "To Kill And Be King" (8:43)
7. "The Machine" (3:39)
8. "Dark Valley Suite" (16:28)