Gateway rises from the grave.
Created in 2014 in Belgium by Robin van Oyen (vocals/all instruments, Iron Death, Earth), the multi-instrumentalist will put his project on hiatus between 2018 and 2020 before returning to finally sign with Transcending Obscurity Records for the release of Galdendood, his second album.
The Coexistence of Dismal Entities, the first track, doesn’t take long to let slowness and oppression overwhelm us. Massive howls mingle with the impressive dissonant sound mass and a devastating double kick to strengthen the cavernous riffs leading into the unholy Sacrificial Blood Oath In The Temple Of K’zadu, which skillfully places some ritualistic tones. Leads are relatively more melodic, offering heady elements that could almost be mistaken for choruses in this ocean of intense, steady darkness, which eventually fades out to make way for Nachtritueel (Evocation) and its short, disturbing pagan ceremony. The mood remains weighing, but explodes again when Scourged At Dawn stomps along with its pachydermic slowness and devastating saturation, sheltering the usual ominous howls and scathing harmonies in the background. Transcendent leads pave the way for Bog Bodies Near The Humid Crypt, a similar composition to the previous one which keeps that constant suffocating approach, before the rhythm picks up slightly before returning to the heady slowness, then giving way to the final track. Entitled Galgendood – Dagritueel – Duvelsput, it locks us in for good in an as dirty and dark as majestic and intriguing chest, letting the musician link his extreme slowness with raw sonorities, which definitively closes with the devastating final.
Gateway‘s raw, dark universe, influenced by Death and Doom, turns Galendood into an inescapable vault, condemning us to be crushed for eternity by slow riffs and massive ghostly vocal parts.
90/100