At the Gates are a band from Sweden that has been around for almost 30 years and are pioneers of the melodic death metal style and this is a review of their 1991 demo "Garden Of Grief" which was re-issued in 2018 by Dissoance.
A very dark and heavy sound starts off the demo along with some melodic guitar leads a few seconds later while the vocals are mostly deep death metal growls as well as the faster sections of the songs also bringing in a decent amount of blast beats and the riffs also bring in a decent amount of melody.
Throughout the recording you can also hear a great mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts while the vocals also bring in a decent amount of screams along with some atmospheric soundscpaes being used briefly as well as the music being more straightforward death metal than later releases and some of the riffing also adds in thrash elements and spoken word parts can also be heard briefly and there is also a brief use of synths.
On this recording At The Gates had more of a raw approach to death metal while also being very melodic at the same time along with the later mentioned becoming more dominant on later releases, the production sounds very old school while the lyrics cover darkness and death themes.
In my opinion this was a very great sounding recording from At The Gates and if you are a fan of this band, you should check out this re-issue. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Souls Of The Evil Departed" and "City Of Screaming Statues". 8 out of 10.
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