Just like Swedish metal
in general, I’ve always been fond of Germanic metal, since they seem to excel
in many sub-genres, mustering some of the most efficient
and influential groups in the world. They already brought a new level of
savagery to thrash and death metal with the rise of Sodom and Kreator, polluted
the black metal universe as we know it by bringing fourth an abundance of
corpse painted church burners, and even the early German power/heavy scene has
had a huge impact of the current scene. Sacred Gate, though, don’t really
embrace the boundaries of originality whilst inserting goblets of monolithic
power metal into the simply embroidered traditional heavy metal textures, and
garnishing the base of their music with simple, but fluent melodies. Sacred
Gate lean towards the traditional sense of heavy metal, deliberately omitting
technicality and exploiting simple, chug laden riffs rather than forming a hard
hitting iron fist to work diligently and to attain copiousness in complexity.
Yes, there’s no use of all the modern power
metal traits here, but at least you can rely on the quality of the ‘’old school’’
term, because these Germans have obviously worked hard to create a fertile ground
for the riffs to breathe. The frontal aura has been set nicely, I’ll admit, but
when the main material comes on top of it, you really can’t feel much energy
besides a few songs. As I said, the only thing that decorates the chords are
plain, melancholic melodies, but even the riffs don’t look as if they were
composed with great care. They’re catchy, and they suit the semi-high pitched
chants of vocalist well when they’re under it, but besides that, they sort of
drown among the drums and lead guitars due to their lack of spike and volume.
The first two tracks caught my attention
easily as they’re catchy and the choruses are very memorable and made more
dynamic with a sort of punk-esque power added to the rush of the chords. There
are some brief moments that I enjoyed as well, but those moments are well…
brief and outnumbered by the score of monotonous melody and chord progressions.
‘’Heaven Under Siege’’ is also a nice addition to the drudgy arsenal of riffs,
offering a bit of a sombre spice to churn with the music, but other than that,
many songs have been dragged for too long and at some moments it almost seems
as if the band is scrambling for something a little different. Now, each song
is solid enough, and I never yawned throughout, but I’m just saying that some
variation would definitely be nice.
The drumming is decent I guess, nothing to
special, but I do like the hefty, chubby bobs of the thick bass line,
supporting the guitar tone quite a lot. All in all, it’s pretty obvious Sacred
Gate have gathered the key elements to form a strong power/heavy formula, a
strong voice, core heavy metal riffs and a catchy beat to add some spunk, so
all they’ve got to do is to embrace their aspects and adorn them even more,
improve them, if need be. They can stick to the old school formula for all I
care, as long as they can make their music more dynamic, I’m totally content.
Such a thing can happen as the members are already veterans and the band has
the required potential, but ‘’When Eternity Ends’’ remains as more plain
release, durable for some time, but it's far from eternal.
Highlights:
Creators Of The Downfall
Burning Wings
Vengeance
Rating: 77,5%
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