Album of the day: The Gates of Slumber – The Wretch

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: If you thought you were glad Saint Vitus is back together and touring, your joy can’t possibly compare to the trad-doom revelry on Indianapolis trio The Gates of Slumber’s fifth album, The Wretch (Rise Above/Metal Blade). A self-acknowledged “return to form” for the band, The Wretch is dark and almost equally weighted emotionally as it is tonally, and the songs deal with a range of pains both existential and physical, but one can’t help but feel in listening that for guitarist / vocalist Karl Simon, bassist Jason McCash and newfound drummer J “Cool” Clyde Paradis, there isn’t a bit of the proverbial “pig in shit” happening as well. It’s hard to pull of doom this good without knowing how much you love Sabbath, Vitus, Pentagram, Trouble and the rest of the genre’s forebears.

Doubtless the addition of Paradis as replacement for “Iron” Bob Fouts (now of Apostle of Solitude) is part of what has allowed The Gates of Slumber to make a stylistic turn from the barbaric metal of their last two breakthrough offerings, Hymns of Blood and Thunder (2009) and Conqueror (2008), and Simon himself agrees in his liner notes. Paradis handles the slow material excellently, accenting the riffs and playing off McCash’s bass with both power and fluidity, and given his apparently propensity for touring, I’d be hard pressed to call him anything less than a perfect fit for what The Gates of Slumber are doing on The Wretch. As someone who had to see the band live before really understanding the appeal of their albums, it was always the doom side of their sound I enjoyed the most (big surprise), and so the eight songs here, even the shorter, faster cuts like ‘To the Rack with Them‘ and ‘Coven of Cain’, are a welcome shift toward the downtempo, beyond the melancholic and into the truly depressive.

Continue reading: The Obelisk » Blog Archive » The Gates of Slumber, The Wretch: Sorrow Without Solace.
(Courtesy of JJ Koczan / The Obelisk)

Tags: Album of the day, doom, Jason McCash, JJ Koczan, Karl Simon, rise above records, the gates of slumber, The Obelisk, The Wretch

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