Format: CD Condition: New Year of Release: 2011 Cat. No.: 150112 Label: Metal Blade (USA)
Doom lords THE GATES OF SLUMBER will unleash their hotly-anticipated fifth full-length album, "The Wretch" in May 2011 via Rise Above Records/Metal Blade.
Featuring eight slabs of punishing metal, the CD boils doom down to its purest form, resulting in the Indianapolis trio's finest work to date.
Recorded during the cold British winter of 2010 at London's Orgone Studios and produced by Jaime Gomez Arellano (GHOST, ANGEL WITCH), "The Wretch" sees THE GATES OF SLUMBER pushing its trademark blend of skull-crushing riffs and pounding rhythms to new heights and marks a return to the slower all-out doom tempos of the group's early albums combined with "true doom metal" lyrical themes. From the funereal crawl of opener "Bastards Born" and the all-powerful title track, to the pounding stomp of "The Scovrge ov Drvnkenness", the barbaric "To the Rack with Them" and the epic "Castle Of The Devil", "The Wretch" is a future classic featuring outstanding performances and some of the heaviest metal you will hear in 2011.
The album's deathly cover art is taken from a watercolor and gouache painting by Arik "Moonhawk" Roper (HIGH ON FIRE) titled "Emerald Eclipse".
"This record is frustration and disappointment put to music," said THE GATES OF SLUMBER frontman and founding member Karl Simon. "No heroics this time, no swords; no sorcery. No fantasy. That stuff is OK; it's fun...whatever, but we don't feel it these days. This one is all about others let you down almost as much as you let yourself down. It might not make sense to you, but then you probably only have the last two records as a digital download. That, or your world is summed up by someone else's soundbite."
TRACKLISTING*:
01. Bastards Born 02. The Scovrge Ov Drvnkenness 03. To The Rack With Them 04. Day of Farewell 05. Castle of the Devil 06. Coven of Cain 07. The Wretch 08. Iron and Fire
