Seven Doors "The Gates Of Hell" CD Bonustrack

Comes in a jewel case with a four-page booklet.

With an opening sample from the film City of The Dead, I have to admit I was expecting a goregrind EP with endless blast beats, guttural vocals and incoherent riffs; essentially Mortician worship. However, The Gates of Hell contains excellent, clear guitar tones with immense sharpness and distortion, like a more polished version of the guitar tone on Deaths' Leprosy. Coupled with this is the riffing style, which is great in its calling back to the old days of death metal, with simple but effective use of power chords intertwined with complex single note patterns that melodically do hold a lot of influence to early Death, with even the creepy lead guitars resembling something from Spiritual Healing. Still, it's not fair to call Seven Doors a ripoff of death, because their music in nature is far chuggier and resembles something more akin to brutal death metal with insanely fast drum rhythms, especially during Blinding Horrors in which there's a crushing slow section about 3 minutes in.

I wasn't expecting the music to be this fluid and melodic, but there is a lot of clarity to be found in the lead sections and general complex structures of the songs; resulting in a much more refined release than expected. With high reverb, low vocals that aren't guttural but still have a lot of muscle, there is also some obvious inspiration from Asphyx or Pestilence. My favourite track is probably Cellar Dweller, with it deadly riffing and intense use of blast beats. The fact that these tracks are all over 5 minutes also shows adequate development in the composition and that Seven Doors doesn't just rely on brutality while neglecting memorable songwriting. This is a great EP that is well worth your time, it has all the knuckle-dragging force of caveman/bdm bands while also retaining a more impressive, melodic sound.

Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=plrLs4CZOTs