July 19th, 2011
Genre: Drone/Doom/Noise/Ambeint
Region: Canada
"Gates bring a refreshing sound to the dark landscape, documented here in this enormous live performance from The Music Gallery in Toronto, Canada on 11/3/11. Those of us that were not present to bear witness to this epic performance are still experiencing regret. Thankfully, the performance was archived here; a perfect segue into their forthcoming Handmade Birds full length due late 2011." - Handmade Birds / Gates blog
I've seen Gates twice, once a few months back with Wolves in the Throne Room/Thou/Thantifaxath and again this past Saturday. Both times they put on extremely hypnotic, loud and noisy shows that impressed me a lot. As a full group they're fairly new and perform live even without all members present, resulting in some interesting experimentation. They've been described as "spectral doom" and you can get a preview of They Hide in the Shadows here.
It is one long and slow "continuous performance, comprised of live adaptations of the songs from 'Moths Have Eaten the Core'" split into three tracks just over ten minutes each. Despite the fact this record is based in a previous recording the changes are significant and engaging. Each track has the musicians building on each other meticulously to form a wall of suffocating atmosphere through wailing guitars, chaotic swirling noise, roaring vocals, and quaking bass. Creeping and ebbing. It's controlled very well, you can hardly tell it is a live recording, and does not wear on you as some drone can.
Great creeping drone that stands out in the genre. Recommended.
EDIT: Link has been fixed, first track no longer has a gap at 1:04 in.
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Awesome... thanks for this one brother.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. If anyone's wondering about the 10 second hiccup of silence in the first track (a few minutes in) I'm not sure what that's about. Doesn't have that on the bandcamp version but this one's straight from the cd. I'll fix it if possible :)
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