Reformed, agitated and distilled down to their most potent points of inspiration Indianapolis, Indiana-based doom metal trio THE GATES OF SLUMBER return for a sixth full-length album thirteen years beyond the last. Succinct and no frills as possible in every aspect ‘The Gates of Slumber‘ aims to communicate direct and without pretense where the bands founder and a couple of old friends have been at in the world since 2019, tested but unwilling to be pressed in doing the thing they love. This time around will be somewhat different than the more elaborate experiential drift longtime fans are used to but the essence of what they’re all about comes across clear and unhindered here to a surprising degree. It isn’t the biggest possible fanfare to return with and the showmanship is all in the songcraft this time around but we get an honest as possible and pretty damned tuneful window into their world over the course of the last several years.

The Gates of Slumber have some interesting enough lore to their name to start having been formed by Karl Simon under this particular name in 1998 and… the details are a bit hazy as far as I’ve gathered wherein a precursor named The Keep released two demos (a tape and a CD-r) before the name change. Without any documentation we could consider a tape (‘Blood Encrusted Deth Axe‘, 2000) made with the help of Athenar of Midnight as the rhythm section officially began their slow walk uphill. The hill in question was a set of demo tapes from the best known trio including Simon as guitarist/vocalist and chief songwriter, bassist Jason McCash, and drummer Chuck Brown who’d left soon after to front Apostle of Solitude. The crest of the hill was a debut LP (‘…the Awakening‘, 2004) where we’d find a refinement of ideas explored prior, notably escalating the reach of the title track and the “Judge”/”Jury” suite. For the sake of context these folks showed early promise offering what many saw as a contemporary medium for traditional doom metal at a time when the stonier strange of Electric Wizard level excess and the jocular stride of Reverend Bizarre found newcomers and lifers eating well. The average High on Fire and Saint Vitus fan equally approved of that starting point and despite a few pretty damned messy guitar solos featured up front. They had the real stuff, the miserable and freshly heavy traditional doom that labels were hungering for ’til the early 2010’s.

From the venerable I Hate Records and Profound Lore ’til Rise Above and ultimately Metal Blade The Gates of Slumber barely took a breath from 2006 through 2011 releasing four more increasingly involved full-length albums with a distinct high fantasy schema and escalating ‘epic’ heaviness in tow. Of course any fan will have their favorites on the trip through, and all of them are worthwhile records still viewed as important United States doom metal in the 2000’s, though I am partial to the long-winded excesses of ‘Suffer No Guilt‘ (2006) in hindsight. For most fans ‘Conqueror‘ (2008) was their larger break and ‘Hymns of Blood and Thunder‘ (2009) quickly capitalized (re: improved wildly) upon its success. As a fan, and a fellowe who counts ‘Die Healing‘-era Saint Vitus as their favorite doom metal record, I don’t know that the band ever truly blew my brains out ’til ‘The Wretch‘ (2011) hit me with its opener “Bastards Born”, the kinda Cathedral-esque bump of a few songs, and the wah-pedal soaked n’ jammed edges of it all landed different. As was the case with Hour of 13 and a few others from this era they’d hit that one album that’d made me a wild-eyed fan and then called it quits, granted in this case not by their own will.

Split in 2014 and reformed in 2019 but with an entirely fitting epilogue to ‘The Wretch‘ in 2016’s ‘Wretch‘ via Simon‘s revivification in Wretch there would ultimately be more The Gates of Slumber on the way but in interviews at the time both bands were initially planned to carry on as separate beings ’til things managed to become a stressor and the folks involved made the choice to take the steadier road back with Simon now accompanied by bassist Steve Janiak and former drummer Chuck Brown both of whom are still fairly fresh off one of their best yet Apostle of Solitude records (see: ‘Until the Darkness Goes‘). With all of this in mind and a detailed trip through their past in hand, plus the (pre-pandemic) suggestion that the early reformation of the band focused on earlier material, expectations for ‘The Gates of Slumber‘ thirteen years beyond ‘The Wretch‘ were at the very least suggesting a reset and perhaps one that was more significant than Simon‘s interim band had achieved.

‘The Gates of Slumber‘ is technically a “pandemic record” in the sense that half of its six songs were written prior to the global COVID-19 epidemic and the other half completed as the furor, death and disarray began to ease. Some of the lyrics on the album give clear enough notion as to when they were written but that whole subject isn’t the major point of this album. If anything The Gates of Slumber have gone ahead and self-titled this record for the sake of it being representative of their original vision in revival, a second life which features both familiar and new damage alike. It is also surprisingly the bands shortest album by about ten minutes and won’t necessarily meet longtime fan expectations of a solid hour of gloom, just barely landing at ~36 minutes in length. Granted what they do have on offer here is, excuse the cliche, all killer no filler material in that every song counts in statement and stature as Simon and crew step back into it.

The way I see the general glom of ideas spread across ‘The Gates of Slumber‘ is a cross between stranger than fiction human behavior, tribute to fictive horror and classic doom metal spiritus. We start with a brilliantly stated classic doom metal piece in “Embrace the Lie“, a Saint Vitus coded creep that burns into Dorrian-esque movement here and there smartly featuring vocals from Janiak to round off its peaking statement. Direct to skull and affected per the subject matter this is a leaner, heavier The Gates of Slumber getting right to it as they square up their chorus with some immediacy and still find time to settle into the whopping main riff at hand. It manages to be such a square hit to the jaw they can afford some chunkier grooves and psyched-out movement on the slinking ’til blues-edged rhythms of “We Are Perdition”. By the time the stoney ride into “Full Moon Fever” hits no doubt Side A will have the longtime fan convinced this is a worthy step back into the realm which manages to pull the core characteristics of the band’s sound back into view with an unnerving clarity but without emulating past production values.

We land on the other side of different portal as the dark, horrified slow-burning gait of Side B gives us a whiff of scorched earth and the burning bodies resultant with “At Dawn” and its death-heavy verse riff bringing it all down to start. From there we get two of the longer, slower-paced pieces on the full listen between “The Fog” and “The Plague” both of which compete for darker than thou expressivity, the former which features some of their nastier venom incensed takes in terms of vocals to date. If you’re a fan of ‘Die Healing‘ and ‘The Road Less Travelled‘ you’ll definitely appreciate the final fifteen or so minutes of this record and the gnarled gamut given as The Gates of Slumber only seem to get more deranged and mean as the whole deal pushes on; Sure, ‘The Gates of Slumber‘ could’ve used one more song but there’s no way I’m walking away from this one less than satisfied with the band’s return, a feat which is nostalgic for the most classic era of doom metal but not looking back and staring too hard at their own past.

As a longtime fan no doubt I’m stoked on this record and appreciate the songcraft and overall statement ‘The Gates of Slumber‘ makes as a strong point of return though I was disappointed with the album artwork amounting to the bands latest logo on a flat black background. On one hand I get it, this is the band at their most communicative and direct to face and speaks to a lot of very simple choices made for the sake of an easy reintroduction. Again, they’d have to be beyond comfortable with this record as key representation when going as far as making it self-titled and in this sense we can read all of these choices at face value. That doesn’t necessarily switch off the record store picking part of my brain that’d always enjoyed thier high fantasy artwork and such in the past. It works and in fact every part of this album works up to the point that I begin to ask for more. Naturally, I’m left wanting more without taking any charged issue with what The Gates of Slumber have given and that isn’t the worst place to be as they reappear in such fine form. A high recommendation.

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