At the Gates

Today on The Noise Report, we're packing our bags for Gothenburg.

Swedish death metal masters at the gates released their fourth album, Slaughter of the Soul, in 1995.

And it has proved to be incredibly influential on modern metal and one hell of an album on its own.

So joining us on the show today is Brian's high school friend and At The Gates expert, Chris Hemmah.

He's going to drop some knowledge, insight, and concert memories.

And we're going to break down all the iconic Slaughter tracks.

So shout out to Phil.

If you ever see this, let's start

But when you were asking the question, like, did you use anything in reference? And it was funny because my answer in my head immediately was like, yeah, us.

Because, I mean, while we do like to take influences from all over the place, a lot of the Swedish bands, you know, and even the bands, you know, the newer bands that we went on tour with, Exodus, not newer, but the bands we went on tour with recently, Exodus, Fit for an Autopsy, Undeath, Decapitated, taking in that kind of vibe, taking in those influences, as well as the old school ones, Carcass, At the Gates, Slayer, all the family tree.

But really...

In the end, as we were writing, it was like, well, it wasn't like, well, cool, make it sound a little metallic, make it sound a little this.

The bands out of nowhere, like I mentioned, the Angel Dust, the End It, Trapped Under Ice, the Turnstiles, the Baltimore, where it's like, oh my God, I didn't even know how much I liked this style of music.

Then you have the bands that are the elder statesmen who have been putting out music, like I mentioned Carcass, like the newer Carcass records, slam.

This newest At the Gates record, is a masterpiece, and it's a statement, and it's Thomas' swan song.

It's all of these things.

And we were like, I remember watching at the time thinking they're surely not going to play the whole fucking 13, 14 minutes of it.

But if I remember they did, and that was like, that must've been, that was one of the first kind of big breakthrough moments, wasn't it? That and At the Gates and Anathema, I think been shown in Headbangers Ball a little bit later though.

yeah those headbangers ball things were really really useful for us you know a lot of people slagged off mtv but it got it got bands like us a lot of exposure especially when peacefield would organize their own festivals nottingham i remember doing this thing all all their bands were there it was great and um What was her name? Warwick.

Vanessa Warwick.

so you're coming into ross lair i guess is it or uh wexford yeah yeah

dublin yeah dublin oh yeah yeah into dublin and straight down to wexford

So who were those first early tours with? Was it just like in Europe? Was that at the Gates or in Atom? Or who were the first tours with?

At the Gates was the very first one.

And this was early days where they're more kind of like a melodic thrashy death metal type band from Sweden or whatever.

To me, these guys, I was a big fan of At The Gates and we'll get to At The Gates.

Spoiler alert.

But, you know, they're in that Gothenburg melodic death metal sound.

All right, cool.

Two more for me.

I'm going to go with one of my favorite bands of all time, At The Gates.

This particular album came out in 1995.

He just knows how to drive a breakdown into your fucking skull.

And, you know, all those, like, cool At The Gates-y melodies, but there's, like, a little bit of, like, techiness to it.

Like, it just doesn't feel like stock At The Gates riffs.

But when they hit on those breakdowns,

Yeah, I would love to, man.

Which he also has a show coming up, as he mentioned on that episode, you know, doing some At the Gates tribute, which is fucking perfect, dude.

I love At the Gates.

Super badass.

Ichabod Crane

kill it.

That's who I thought of immediately when I when you first sent me their song.

I'm like, oh, this is like modern day at the gates or something.

And I was just gobbling up any kind of American, metallic, hardcore, Poison the Well music.

vision disorder all that kind of stuff i absolutely loved it and i went up to the guy who was doing a distro at the back of the venue and i said to him i really like all of these metallic hardcore bands what have you got for me that you think i will like i'm going to buy something anything and he pulled out the mark of the judas by darkest hour which is their 2000 debut album and said this is brilliant this is like hardcore punk kids playing at the gates riffs And I was like, sold, I'm having that.

Took it home, put it on, and literally within about 10 seconds of the riff for The Soul of the Saviour came in, Darkest Hour had made a fan in me.

I think that album is brilliant.

Always happy to

spread the gospel of Damnation AD.

yeah it's so good um right your next pick is it's funny actually because what you just said is kind of segued quite nicely about being a kind of hardcore band playing metal or a um you know to metal fans and hardcore fans because your next pick is slaughter the soul the aforementioned slaughter the soul by at the gates uh their fourth album um their last time for nearly two decades and uh it came out on the 14th of november 1995 and So probably around 2001, I reckon, I went to see the Leeds hardcore band Imbalance and Dead Inside as well, the Winchester Railway right near me when I was a kid, right? And there was a distro there and the guy said, I was talking to the guy who was running this distro and And I said, I want like a hardcore band.

I want like a heavy, heavy hardcore.

And this is on Scarlet Records.

And if you're a fan of At the Gates, The Crown, or Darkane, you're gonna dig Hatesphere.

This one here actually really, it was really close to being a pick for me.

I