GATECREEPER – DARK SUPERSTITION

(Is the new Gatecreeper a trendkiller, or just a trend-follower? Andy Synn sets out to find out)

Let me ask you a question – how important is originality to you?

No, it’s not a trick question. After all, I’ve stated before that making a good (or great) album doesn’t necessarily require you to be particularly original – let’s face it, the Metal scene does tend to love a good throwback (sometimes too much) – as long as the execution and (more importantly) the songwriting are good enough.

Case in point – Gatecreeper‘s third album is basically a Dismember record in all but name.

But while Dark Superstition has definitely gained an advantage by standing on the shoulders of giants, it remains to be seen whether it has the songs to properly stand on its own two (or ten) feet.

To their credit, it’s not like Gatecreeper have ever tried to hide their influences – hell, the single artwork for hook-heavy second-half highlight “Caught in the Treads” could easily have come from an alternate version of Massive Killing Capacity – and the very fact that their new album is so Dismember-ish actually helps it stand out from the flurry of Cannibal Corpse clones and modernised Morbid Angels we’ve received over the last few years.

Even so, Dark Superstition still has its work cut out for it to prove itself to be more than just another in a long line of post-millennial OSDM revivalist records – but, thankfully, the strength of the group’s stripped-down, no filler (well… mostly) songwriting goes a long way towards assuaging at least some of these fears.

Early highlights include instantly infectious opener “Dead Star” and the writhing melodies and revving riffs of “Oblivion” – both of which also add a touch of At The Gates into the mix, without sounding too far removed, sonically or spiritually, from classics like “On Frozen Fields” or “Time Heals Nothing” – and while not every song is capable of hitting these heights (punky pre-release single “The Black Curtain” remains a weird outlier, in my opinion) the second half of the album is where Gatecreeper have really hidden the goods this time around.

Whether that’s the neck-wrecking rhythmic hooks of the aforementioned “Caught in the Treads”, the groovy swagger of “Flesh Habit” (with frontman Chase Mason sounding even more like ex-Hatesphere throat-ripper Jacob Bredahl than ever) or the riff-heavy monster-mash of “Mistaken for Dead” (one of my personal favourites) these final four tracks – culminating in the album’s doomily melodic, dare I say Paradise Lost inspired, denouement “Tears Fall From the Sky” – really do represent Dark Superstition at its absolute best, such that even those who’ve been critical of the record’s first half will find it difficult not to find something to love here.

Speaking of criticism… you may well have noticed that online opinions on this one have been quite varied, and quite polarised – from the knee-jerk negativity of those complaining that it’s “too melodic” or “too Hardcore” (ignorant of the fact that the Swe-Death scene always had a prominent D-Beat influence) to be considered “real Death Metal”, to the overly-effusive praise doled out by the sort of folks well known for declaring whatever over-hyped album they’ve listened to most recently (cough, Frozen Soul, cough) as “album of the year!”.

Ultimately, however, my take sits somewhere between these two extremes, as while I have no hesitation in calling Dark Superstition a good album – with occasional hints of greater things to come – the band themselves are still more in the “good artists borrow” rather than the “great artists steal” stage of their career… although that shouldn’t stop them from stealing a few hearts, and earning themselves a lot more fans, with this one!