Why on Earth would I trek halfway across Denver in the freezing cold to see Gatecreeper, when King Diamond was playing right around the corner? King Diamond is always a safe investment; Gatecreeper, in its early stages, was the insiders’ little known pick. So, with snow spiraling down and a frigid can of Coors in my hand, Gatecreeper it was. It was November 2019, and unbeknownst to me then, the last time I’d be able to see them up to this day. The insiders’ pick totally paid off.
Out of my frustrations and fears, spare time and growing boredom, this webzine was born. Extreme Underground Metal recently turned 1 year old, starting just after the heartbreaking cancellation of the 2020 Decibel Magazine Tour. Legendary black metal pioneers Mayhem were slated to headline, with Abbath, Gatecreeper, and Idle Hands in support. I will be first in line for the next Decibel Tour, whenever it decides to rejoin the Mile High Club.
But let’s get back to the epic show at the end of 2019. Sean, Matt, Israel, and Eric took the stage, plugged in, and electrocuted the willing crowd. On the wings of the wildly successful Deserted, Gatecreeper was flying high. The opening notes of “Sweltering Madness” ripped the wires from under the dashboard and lead vocalist Chase Mason’s brutal introductory “ough” hotwired the engine to a fiery roar. Beer was flying, the crowd was surging, and a fist fight broke out in the circle pit behind me. Eric, the lead guitarist, mouthed “fist fight” to the drummer, who merely nodded, and hi-hatted the group to the next track. Gatecreeper fried for nearly an hour, playing instant hit after hit – not an easy task for a band with only two studio albums.
I left the show midway through headliner Exhumed‘s set, out of exhaustion and satisfaction from the main event (in my eyes – no slight to Exhumed at all), as well as concern I would misplace or lose my prize of the night, a custom guitar pick from “The Dark Cowboy” himself, Eric Wagner (pictured below).
Gatecreeper is the death metal band you didn’t know death metal needed. Gatecreeper appropriately self-identifies as “Stadium Death Metal.” If this makes you think of the Scorpions, Van Halen, or Def Leppard, that’s the idea. Gatecreeper has the skeleton and soul of traditional death metal, with all the meat and muscle of stadium rock. Memorable power chords and endless lead licks lend themselves to instant gratification through headbanging. But this nomenclature has wider implications. In an interview with The Pit, lead vocalist Chase Mason says of Gatecreeper’s sound: “With the songwriting and maybe some of the different ways we’ve branded ourselves as a band leans into having a wider audience… [and] that’s something I welcome.” Writing death metal songs structured as pop songs inherently makes them catchier and more accessible, all the more reason Gatecreeper is the prize fighting challenger of the genre.
Decibel Magazine’s Issue 196 (early January 2021, pictured above) came with a cryptic surprise on the back cover: just below the colorfully terrifying and unnervingly dimensional display of mythical beasts, Gatecreeper’s logo is printed above three words: “AN UNEXPECTED REALITY.” Hastily organized internet sleuthing and chatroom theorizing failed to overturn anything concrete, and popular theory pointed to the band releasing a new song, but a few days later, Gatecreeper’s entire new album dropped.
An Unexpected Reality, in both delivery and song style, is about as predictable as an alien invasion. On one side, seven ultra-short grindcore-infused death metal rippers (one called “Superspreader”) span less than seven minutes and leave the listener spinning in a dazed state of ecstasy, before side two grinds the madness to a halt with a tantalizingly slow and utterly beautiful, crushing doom metal song called “Emptiness.” The finesse shown by Gatecreeper in writing a single album full of end-member metal songs spanning major genres is nothing short of phenomenal. This record single-handedly proves that Gatecreeper, already lauded as one of the finest modern death metal acts on the planet, really can do it all.
A month later, they livestreamed a show from the Crescent Ballroom in their home state of Arizona, powering through hits from the first two records in addition to a splattering of new material. In true tongue-in-cheek style, an “Ough Counter” was deployed for Chase, who managed to hit 31 by the end of the performance.
As Extreme Underground Metal was born from the ashes of the 2020 Decibel Magazine Tour and 2021 began with an unbelievably deft, superior surprise record from the Arizona death-metallers themselves, Gatecreeper is tailormade to be Extreme Underground Metal’s first ever Band of the Year.
