Living Gate: Suffer as One

Despite doing my best to trawl the vast ocean of new releases, there are just so many bands, labels and albums that it's impossible to listen to everything in the year of its release. Suffer as One by Living Gate is an example of this for me. I'm hearing it for the first time in 2025 however it was released in October 2024. It's a shame that this album passed me by last year as I'm almost certain I'd have found a space for it in my top albums list. It's that good.

Living Gate is a self-proclaimed old-school style death metal band formed by heavy music musicians who have made a name for themselves outside of this sub-genre. Aaron Rieseberg (YOB,) Lennart Bossu (Oathbreaker, Amenra,) Wim Coppers (Oathbreaker, Wiegedood,) and Levy Seynaeve (Wiegedood). That's a vast array of sound and influences - from the Doom / Psych of YOB, to the Post Metal of Amenra to the Black metal of Wiegedood and Hard-core of Oathbreaker. As it turns out all of these guys have a penchant for Old School Death Metal records, so they've crafted one of their own.

As you might expect given the players, this album isn't a generic old-school death metal album, despite the noted intent. Understanding the influences of the individual musicians helps me to make sense of the release which is largely a chaotic, frenzied, and intense release. It's intricate and a little progressive, yet bludgeoning at the same time. For the majority of the release, the band is pummeling the listener into submission with their restless, hyperactive, technical approach. There are old-school death metal influences no doubt, but I also hear some shade of more modern bands like Decapitated and Between The Buried and Me. This album isn't a throwback album full of Obituary-style riffs or Suffocation breakdowns, or Cannibal Corpse vocal references. And whilst I'd be very ok if it was, I think the unique take on OSDM is why the album is so enjoyable. The production is also very good. All the tones are organic and heavy, as was the norm in the early 90s when death metal came to be.

The tracklist is strong from the top to the tail, although the double play of the "Groovy Destroy And Consume", into the death march of "A Unified Soul" is probably the highlight for me.

An easy recommendation for all fans of extreme metal.

Tracklist
1. To Cut Off The Head Of The Snake
2. Internal Decomposition
3. Destroy And Consume
4. A Unified Soul
5. Massive Depletion In Eb Minor
6. Suffer As One
7. Ones And Zeroes
8. Hunting Maggots
9. Atoms And Particles
10. Overcome, Overthrow
11. CQC

Added: January 14th 2025
Reviewer: Chris Reid
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 219
Language: english

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