Living Gate - Suffer As One [LP Galaxy edition]

LIVING GATE unleash their debut full length, Suffer as One! The band, featuring Aaron Rieseberg (YOB,) Lennart Bossu (Oathbreaker, Amenra,) Wim Coppers (Oathbreaker, Wiegedood,) and Levy Seynaeve (Wiegedood,) surfaces from the underground to release one of 2024's most unrelenting, Old School Death Metal records.

A follow up to the Deathlust EP and the Internal Decomposition single, LIVING GATE's thesis statement is now bold and clear: old school, heavier-than-anything-ever Death Metal is here to stay. Suffer as One exemplifies all of the strengths of the genre through its sheer ferocity. Off rip, the riffs on "To Cut the Head Off a Snake" are equal parts muscular and angular. The blast beats and double-bass stomps suffocate the listener with low end - vocals are utterly guttural and pierce from within. Every moment on Suffer as One feels crucial; riffs, melodies, even vocal phrasings turn on their heads at the drop of a dime, giving way to hellish solos set against technical-meets-bombastic rhythm sections.

With an eye to the future, LIVING GATE seek to solidify their own take on the genre with tracks like "Destroy and Consume", which leans on a borderline hardcore swagger, crashing it head on with leads and riffs that chug and swirl around into spheres of madness. Elsewhere, Rieseberg carries the torch for the band in "Massive Depletion In Eb Minor", a bass interlude that makes way for the band's massive title track.