Entry 797 - At the Gates - To Drink From The Night Itself

Style: Melodic death metal

Primary Emotions/Themes: A phenomenal album ruined by a poor pressing. 

Thoughts: When At the Gates reformed they proclaimed that there would be no new music created by the quintet. That statement is obviously a falsehood at this point, where we are now looking at three post reformation albums. To Drink from the Night Itself is the second of that trilogy and it contains some of the better music that the band has created.

The music in At the Gates' sixth full length sees the band exploring the creativeness that was first seen on With Fear I Kiss the Burning darkness, but with a more mature eye. The songs on this album are as varied as anything the band has created in their entire career. There are scorchers like we have come to expect from the band. The band contrasts this with slower, more contemplative tracks as well.

Daggers of Black Haze is a personal favorite that incorporates the slower tempo and atmosphere to an excellent end result. Thomas' vocals are biting and the bands riffs match his venom note for note. The combination of tremolo picked lead guitars mixed with the massive rhythm section gets me nearly every time. The chorus in particular gets stuck in my head for days at a time, truly excellent stuff. 

There is also a return to using classical instrumentation here. The intro and outro specifically have strong use of stringed instruments, similar to that found on The Hive from Terminal Spirit Disease. Again, expertly crafted. 

I have this feeling that To Drink Form the Night Itself is the band looking at their entire discography and taking another stab at the different sounds that they had. The end result is so varied, and almost experimental for such a storied band. It's this experimental feeling that gives me the comparison to With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness. Instead of many of those experiments failing however, the band is now fully mature in their musical endeavors and creates music that is not only enjoyable to listen to, but ends up being one of the bands better albums regardless of era.

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A quick side note: as much as I love this album, the pressing that I own (or owned at this time of this writing) is sub standard. There is a ton of inner groove distortion. The songs sound like they are changing speed mid track, and it sounds flat... no dynamics at all. It's a damn shame.

Written May 6th 2024