Recording History

The Blackened Path to Destruction



The bands maiden release, considered a landmark amongst the fledgling Australian death metal community. It helped pave the way for the likes of Psycroptic in terms of highly refined tech death. This album was the perfect showcase for the bands massive improvement since their formation, though there are a number of tracks that fail to hit the mark but is warmly regarded by fans of the genre. The famous (or infamous...) guitarist of legendary metallers Thunderwolf, their contemporaries, Rayven, had claimed he had walked through a blizzard in search of a new copy whilst on tour after having worn his out.

Towers of Decay

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Whilst the follow up to 'The Blackened Path...' it bears little semblance to what came before and is the bands successful return following many years out of the limelight. Whilst still retaining that highly refined technical death slant of before, it melded chilling atmospherics, melody and winding acoustic interludes, essentially sowing the seeds for Fisher's branch off with Sisyphean. It managed to crack the Top 200 and sold strongly in the UK.

The Forbidden Light



In between the two records, the band courted controversy with 'Inconcessus Lux Lucis', an EP that almost threw out the bands technical death angle and further investigated the dynamic instrumentals of Towers of Decay. Whilst it was popular with zines and the like, the fans turned on it and it was scarcely sighted in the charts. Here the band practically ditched their new found creativity and went back to basics (almost). Whilst it did chart better than their second album, it did not find the same hold on the fans imagination as previous works. The the first time the band focused on a central theme for a record, that been the fight between good and evil.

The Sorrowful Mystery



Once more a concept album, this time looking at the death of Christ. Here Paul Smith had quit the band for Dies Irae and in came the pint sized Maggy Langely. She did not have the speed of Smith or his flawless moves but was a more than suitable replacement. It was their heaviest release yet, relying much less on their complex tech death writing but bringing back the atmospherics they created with Towers... and utilising Sanders exemplary vocal range to full effect, for the first time involving haunting spoken pieces and almost operatic stylings. This album is seen as the bands definitive push into more eclectic and rarefied sounds.

Harry Lathien (Sudan) stood in for bass duties whilst George Rutan spent time in jail in the US. Lathien also wrote three songs and the Sudan influence was clearly heard. The legendary vocalist of long departed black thrashers MAD, James 'Jimmy' Kelso lent a hand on 'Into the Arms of Weeping Women' with a bone chilling, demented performance on the thirteen minute epic. Drunken mayhem was another thing he also introduced to the usually straight laced recording sessions of the band.

No supporting tour was ever done for the album, which lead to the departure of Rick Fisher several months later.

Symbolic Failure



For the first time the band was without Fisher, who now spent time running his record label and working on Sisyphean. In came, once more Jimmy Kelso, who this time filled Fisher's void as guitarist. Mikael Brandstrom was signed on as bassist full time. Once again shifting direction, the band opted for a stripped back approach, denying their progressive slants of before and opting for a heavy thrash attack. The fans dug the record, lapping up the rarified brutality, and it reached 37 on the world wide charts. The band revelled in the far less strained studio sessions and it flowed onto the record. As soon as the band found major commercial success, they abruptly quit.

According to the band, they had achieved all they felt they could and signed off in style at the first Hellfire Open Air festival in Lithuania, the only chance fans had to say goodbye.

Equilibrium



Much water appeared to have drifted under the bridge as far as the band went when the band unexpectedly surfaced for an impromtu EP entitled 'Shadows'. The manner in which the straight ahead technical death assault was received encouraged the band to return for good. Back in was Paul Smith to fill the drum throne. Eric Sanders nearly did not return however was persuaded by Fisher after some months of holding out.

That return was entitled Equilibrium (initially entitled Serpent Headed Fury and with different tracks that were later thrown out). It was nothing like their EP return, instead melding spazzed out jazz, highly technical rhythms, off kilter melodies and 70's prog metal. Their album artwork also attests to their new found direction. One could be forgiven for thinking its an entirely different band if they had listened to any of their previous material. It shows the massive growth in terms of been musicians for the band and their ambitions and on going freindship with the Theosophical Society.

Constellations



The album sees the band go deep into the prog rock genre, with plenty of nods to the past but with
a modern, heavy guitar sound. The listener can here a more updated ode to Rush, Genesis, King Crimson and the likes without been overly bombastic and inaccesible. That's just the first disc to start with, with the second almost alien in its presence with a cold, abrasive uber technical death metal. Melody is evident but its made to feel completely out of place, like hope trying to overcome negativity but ultimately succumbing to malevolent forces. The album itself deals with Satanism on a metaphysical level, its lyrics having been written by Eric Sanders.

So what now?

What now indeed? There is nothing categorically stated from the band about whether this is actually any new material in the pipeline. However Fisher states, 'No more touring'. His statement was unequivocal, straight to the point. 'I am done with that...I am nearing fifty for fuck sake. I can't do that shit any more...the other guys don't want to so we are just going to be studio whores until we have had enough. Who wants to waste half the year jumping from city to city, sitting on a tour bus wanking into a sock or eating stale peanuts on a commercial airliner?'

Fisher plans to, whilst The Black Gates work their way back, to release some unrelated material from other bands. 'I will finally release that Psychopathologist album I did with the guys from Hellspawn and Black Gold Reign. I can't remember why it never came out. Plus I will release our material that we were working on for the Dome Circe project that we did with the Sudan guys. It's like Opeth, if your wondering. None of these will be in physical form, they will be purely digital releases. We are seriously considering offering all our material on line now, it's the way of the future and it will be cheap for those purchasing. That's only for new material. All older releases will be completely free. The back catalog of the band will be coming out soon'.


ooc: apologies for the wall o text, if your attention span is short....

tl;dr: The Black Gates are back

Edited by user 06 November 2011 22:35:51(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified