Emergency Gate
Infected

The gate of emergencies are back with a new album. Last year their album You were well received by us here at Hallowed, now a year has passed and the line up has decreased slightly. The band has gotten older and they have a cool apocalyptic looking cover artwork for their new album Infected. It is their fifth full length album, their first was released back in 2006 so they do have some experience already but still Caj questioned their relevance in terms of adding a fresh perspective of a watered out genre. So what about now, have they taken a step towards the unique or are they still sailing in the safe waters already sailed by many?

I would say that the latter is more correct than the former. The music is quite standard melodic death metal, music that we have heard a lot of and that is still popular to make in all shapes and sizes. Most does not manage to offer something unique or new when it comes to this genre and that is true of these guys, their music is following a rather standard format of the genre. Dual vocals clean and growly, aggressive mixed with melodic and keyboards, sometimes quite heavy and other times not particularly heavy like in the ending track. The variation over the album is quite big in terms of both power and pace but that leads to the album being somewhat incoherent at times. It is painted on a broad canvas but the landscape sometimes suffering from laying just between two continental plates which messes up some of it. A dozen tracks and 40 minutes of playing time is what we are given, and we are given really well produced music.

It is clear that these guys know what they are doing and that they are very skilled in producing catchy melodic death metal. It is a good album. I just think that someone ought to teach these guys words like originality and thinking outside the box. The lack of originality makes it very unlikely that these guys will stand out amongst the established dragons and innovative thinkers in the genre, they are not different enough for anyone to take immediate notice. But lack of inventiveness doesn’t mean that they are bad, this album is good, I like listening to it but I don’t think much of the album will linger in my mind long after I have written this review.

Fans of the melodic death metal genre should have a look at this album, most others will probably just gloss over it dismissing it as one more melodic death metal album. There are however two tracks that I really like on the album, the seventh track Infected Nightmare is a strong really catchy tune that is short and to the point with no clutter. Then I really like the ending which might not quite be a track that suits the album as a whole but is an excellent ending and no growling at all. I don’t really like the growls on this album either, but as a whole I think it is a quite good piece of music that might just go down well with the genre’s fans.

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