ALBUM REVIEW: Dark Superstition – Gatecreeper

Ever meet those really annoying people who just seem to be good at everything? Sporty, musical, academic, funny… like, just pick one or two and leave something for the rest of us please. That’s GATECREEPER, or it is within the world of death metal at least; they can do ENTOMBED worship, they can do hardcore influences, they can do death-doom – those last two both demonstrated so emphatically in just 17 minutes on 2021’s An Unexpected Reality EP – and it turns out they can also do the anthemic, the melodic and the truly gigantic. Dark Superstition is their third full-length and first for Nuclear Blast and it takes the flirtations with self-described “stadium death metal” heard on its 2019 predecessor Deserted to towering new heights.

It’s evident immediately too, opener Dead Star roaring straight into life with the kind of rousing lead part that you could probably hum or chant back to the band within moments of first hearing. Between that and the massive chorus there’s definitely a whiff of Clayman era IN FLAMES here, one that grows stronger still in the likes of Superstitious Vision and A Chilling Aura around the album’s halfway mark, while other tracks like lead single The Black Curtain and especially the later highlight Flesh Habit evoke more of the goth-tinged bombast of the legendary PARADISE LOST. In every case these comparisons are meant as compliments – one would hope that much is obvious – though at no point do they come at the expense of the band’s own grit and character.

Of course, having Kurt Ballou produce your record will definitely help with that. The CONVERGE guitarist and all round studio savant is brilliant at making a band sound huge without overcomplicating the mix with layers that they’ll never be able to replicate live, and that’s exactly what he does for GATECREEPER here. Dark Superstition has that classic feeling of an album just being thrashed out by the five members of the band in a room together, the raw and timeless power of the HM-2 and the thunderous heft of the rhythm section and the rapturous bellow of vocalist Chase H. Mason all unencumbered by unnecessary overdubs and if anything actually feeling fuller and all the more imposing for it.

There are straight-up ragers too – like Oblivion and Mistaken For Dead – and doomier ones like Masterpiece Of Chaos and the emotive and climactic album closer Tears Fall From The Sky, but Dark Superstition delivers most and best of all on intentionally concise death metal bangers that are just begging to be played to bouncing masses and flying beer cups about halfway up a festival bill. There are a lot of great death metal bands doing a lot of great things at the moment, but there aren’t many making death metal that feels both accessible and genuinely ferocious at the same time; this leaves GATECREEPER in a special position indeed – perhaps a gateway to the somewhat less approachable but no less fantastic likes of UNDEATH and FROZEN SOUL and so on, but without question also one of the most formidable leaders of the modern death metal pack in their own right.

Rating: 8/10

Dark Superstition is set for release on May 17th via Nuclear Blast Records.

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