Friday Full-Length: The Gates of Slumber, …The Awakening
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 28th, 2020 by JJ KoczanBeginning next week, Indianapolis doomers The Gates of Slumber will embark on a European tour that, centered around and fostered by an appearance at Hell over Hammaburg in Germany, will touch down in six different countries across nine shows. It’s not the hugest tour the band have ever undertaken by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a special moment nonetheless as founding guitarist/vocalist Karl Simon (interview here) — who’s spent the last couple years developing the similarly-minded trio Wretch in part to spread The Gates of Slumber‘s legacy — revitalizes the band after splitting up in 2013. They go abroad with the express purpose of celebrating their 2004 debut, …The Awakening (originally released on Final Chapter Records), and joining Simon in the lineup is drummer Chuck Brown, who played on the album and went on to found Apostle of Solitude as vocalist/guitarist after its release, and bassist Steve Janiak, who’s been in Apostle of Solitude since about 2012 and who also fronts the wildly underrated Devil to Pay, also in vocals and guitar. The latter steps into an especially precarious position in the band, taking on the role once held by Jason McCash prior to his leaving the band in 2013 — causing the breakup — and subsequent death the next year.
The reunion tour and what it might lead to aside, …The Awakening hit 15 years old in 2019 and remains a work out of its own time. Not that there was no doom happening circa 2004 — indeed, The Gates of Slumber‘s “membership” in the ‘Circle of True Doom’ speaks to a community already crossing international borders — but they represented a new generation in direct engagement with some of the style’s most treasured traditions. You want to know how to doom? Cool. Go ahead and put on the opening track of …The Awakening, and once you’re past the howling wind, tolling bell and vague screams that consume the first minute-plus, sit back as Simon, McCash and Brown put together a handy tutorial on doing it right. Seriously. “The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead)” is a nine-minute clinic not only in what the album that in part shares its name has to offer, but really on the appeal of traditionalist doom on the whole. Its Sabbathian lurch is worn on-sleeve, and Simon‘s vocals are immediately downtrodden, the melody following the riff on a depressive spiral punctuated by the bell of Brown‘s ride cymbal evoking the introduction. The song grows slower and more tortured in its second half setting up the guitar solo that consumes both channels in Iommic layering, and then, as it approaches its last minute, the drums kick into a faster progression to thrash out as another, more ripping lead finishes off.
I won’t discount the 9:33 bookending closer “The Burial,”
or a speedster shuffle like “The Executioner,” the low-end-shoved chug of “Broken on the Wheel” or the plod and swing of “The Judge” and “The Jury,” respectively — this is essential doom and essentialist doom. It is doom the cuts through nuance and bullshit and proceeds to death. That is what it does from front to back. Wakes up on its last day, sees judge and jury, is tortured, executed and buried — done. But it’s in “The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead)” that The Gates of Slumber set the stage on which the drama that follows plays out, and they’re never so much consumed by the narrative as they are bringing to bear the sense of defeat of one who is powerless against their fate. Every dense-toned bassline from McCash and even the most uptempo of parts in “Broken on the Wheel” or “The Executioner” are prefaced by that last stretch in the leadoff cut. Perhaps only the penultimate bass-led interlude “Blessed Pathway to the Celestial Kingdom” stands apart in terms of aesthetic, but definitely not in mood, and …The Awakening remains unified in its purpose even as it transitions from alive to dead in that brief moment.
“The Burial,” then, is a glorious epilogue of a wasted life. You never find out what brings about the execution — “The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead)” references zombies and post-death horrors at the outset, but the nearest clue is in the lyrics to “The Jury,” with the lines, “You were guilty as the oaths were sworn. A felon to die upon the morn.” Whether we’re burying the undead alive or punishing some unknown treason or betrayal, does it really matter? The underlying point of …The Awakening is that existence is the punishment, and whatever situational extrapolation one might want to bring to the narrative across the songs, the same statement applies. There’s no getting away from it. No escape from that executioner’s blade. We’re all fucked. Doom on.
As much as one might look at a lineup of The Gates of Slumber with Karl Simon, Steve Janiak and Chuck Brown and daydream of new material topped with morose three-part harmonies to fill the grueling spaces left by the band’s signature riffs, part of the appeal of …The Awakening — a big part of it — is its straightforwardness. It is hiding nothing, either about its origins, its influences, or its intentions. The band at the time were beginning an exploration that would gradually lead them away from doom as a central focus and toward a more epic metal style, as 2006’s Suffer No Guilt begat 2008’s Conqueror and 2009’s Hymns of Blood and Thunder (review here), but doom was always there, and when 2011’s The Wretch (review here) — from whence Simon‘s post-Gates band would later derive their name — surfaced in all its ultra-Saint Vitus-style misery, the feeling was that The Gates of Slumber‘s claim on the forefront of US doom had never been stronger or more resonant. When their 2013 EP, Stormcrow (review here), served as the final installment of their career, even more than a decade on from their start the primary loss seemed to be in their potential going unfulfilled.
The Church Within Records has — today, apparently — issued a live record called Live at Tempe Arizona, and The Gates of Slumber have been steadily posting rehearsal footage from a basement that should be well recognizable to anyone who follows along with similar videos from Apostle of Solitude. Wherever their reunion goes or doesn’t go after this tour, whether there’s another The Gates of Slumber album or tour or not, their legacy is cast in the quality and the sincerity of their doom. There are few bands who have been able to play to style while feeling as genuine and heartfelt as The Gates of Slumber do on …The Awakening, and that only makes the record all the more worthy of the homage they’re paying it.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Don’t even ask what’s on next week. I have a dentist appointment Thursday? I know that. But I don’t even know what I’m writing about for Monday. It’s in the notes, I’ll deal with it over the weekend. Lord Buffalo maybe? I don’t know. Whatever. I’ve been trying to sleep later with mixed results and this week sucked anyway. Kid’s good. Everyone’s healthy. Whatever else.
Fuck email. I just don’t have the energy to deal with that shit. I have 147 messages that I just have no idea what the fuck to do with. I want to put up an out of office and be like, “Sorry I’m dead.” Facebook Messenger. Are you fucking kidding me?
Oh, I’m gonna review Arbouretum next week. Well that’s a break. That’ll be good. No one will give a crap, but whatever. I reviewed My Dying Bride this week, no one gave a crap. Why would they. Band’s been around for 30 years, what the hell am I gonna say about them that hasn’t been said 100 times before? Duh they’re good at what they do. Review over. Took me 1,000 words to say that, pretentious nitwit that I am. Feigning relevance for 11 years and counting! I don’t care. I just keep doing it anyway. I need it.
I’m burnt out, man. Still more than a month to go until Roadburn and I’m feeling like that spiritual rejuvenation is needed. Lot of hills to climb before I get there.
Leap Day tomorrow. I’ll be watching baseball and trying to avoid looking at the computer, counting down the minutes until it’s time to heat up leftovers for dinner. Farmer’s market on Sunday maybe. Fine.
Last night, I got offered $100 to write a review for today. Someone trying to buy coverage. This is a person who, in the past, I’ve considered a friend. Trying to buy coverage from me. Obviously clueless as to how insulting that is. I did not, and now will not, write the review. How could I possibly?
That’s life.
So I’m out $100. Ha.
At least Picard is good.
Anyway. Great and safe weekend. Appreciate you reading. FRM.
