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Artist......: Ancient North
Album.......: The Gates
Year........: 2022
Genre.......: Black Metal
Type........: Album
Label.......: Iron Bonehead Productions
Language....: English
Source......: WEB/FLAC (16bit)
Quality.....: 889kbps / 44.1 kHz / Stereo
Tracks......: 8 tracks
Playtime....: 00:39:42
Size........: 264.4 MiB
R.Date......: 2026-07-08
S.Date......: 2022-04-26
Url.........: https://open.qobuz.com/album/w82lp9ngfyrpc
01. Intro 1:02
02. A Glimpse Ov Eternity 4:21
03. Rites Ov the Demon Race 5:27
04. Deicide Warriors Ov the Abyss 7:30
05. Forsaken Mountain Ov the Storm Race 4:47
06. Devourer Ov Souls 5:13
07. Graven tåkeheimens saler (Darkthrone cover) 6:08
08. The Gates 5:13
This American one-man act Ancient North gives away what
to expect even without having heard a single note. One
look at the cover of 'The Gates' and the comparison with
'Antichrist' of Gorgoroth is easily made. Add the band
name and there is nothing left to guess for.
Forlorn, the sinister (and young-looking) figure behind
Ancient North, does not hide his fascination for
Norwegian Black Metal. In just under 40 minutes, the all
too familiar elements rushes past your senses: rattling
drums, cold power chords and raspy vocals. Let's assume
for the sake of convenience that we have to accept this
as an homage to that iconic Norwegian sound and not see
it as a simple rip off - for it does sound a lot like
that. With that in mind, there is still no other
conclusion to be drawn that the whole thing is pretty
one-dimensional and although it doesn't sound all that
bad, there is not a single riff that really sticks.
There is no denying that Forlorn tries hard to make
everything sound as authentic as possible, including the
for early Immortal so characteristic abrupt start-stop's
and a Darkthrone-cover in the form of 'Graven
Tåkeheimens Saler'.
My guess is that Forlorn's favorite records will be
Immortal's 'Pure Holocaust', Darkthrone's 'Under A
Funeral Moon' and the first three Gorgoroth albums,
however, never does anything on 'The Gates' approach the
level of these musical examples. Forlorn will have to do
more than this with Ancient North to avoid the danger of
following in the footsteps of so many band's doing 'that
Norwegian thing' but all failed and got lost in
oblivion.