It’s long been a trend for thousands upon thousands of bands to pay tribute to the classic days of death metal where everything was awesome, raw, and undeniable in its power when the style was still very much in its infancy. We’ve seen advanced tribute acts like Gruesome pay homage specifically to Death and many others who come together to revere the style as a whole with new material in the same vein. Even members from wildly successful groups are going out of their way to show their respect and love for the style with the latest version of which coming from the likes of Living Gate.

The history and quality behind each member’s respective bands truly speak for themselves, but it means nothing if they can’t pull off this kind of death metal with that being the goal that they set out with when forming Living Gate. And with a “simple but effective” approach that many others try their hand at when also creating this kind of death metal, these guys had a relatively easy goal to pull off if you ask me. Right from the get-go with “Deathlust”, it’s clear that they succeeded wildly at that goal. Just five tracks are all we see with this debut, but they speak absolute volumes about this band’s capability as a whole. There isn’t much fanciness going on here nor innovation in the way of changing the formula or sound in any way, and Living Gate knows how to run with it magnificently as “Deathlust” quickly becomes a voracious beast that takes more than a lot from the style for a modern iteration that’s far from forgetful. Every inch of the record is drenched in blood and bringing the listener to the verge of screaming for more as it’s in every track that Living Gate throws down that we can see just how devastating of an act they are as a whole, and to see them already execute it amazingly on their debut makes me very hopeful for even more grandiose chaos in the future.

Endless bands have tried to recreate the classic sound of death metal with every level of success and failure being seen all over, and with “Deathlust” already being a powerhouse of a debut in every right, there shouldn’t be any question as to the potential of what Living Gate can deliver. It’s powerful in just about every way and to say that this extremely talented group of accomplished musicians brought anything but immense glory to the name of classic death metal would be an outright insult.

“Deathlust” releases on June 12th via Relapse Records!

PRE-ORDER “Deathlust” via multiple sources here.

LISTEN to advanced tracks from “Deathlust” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Living Gate on Facebook here.