113. At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul (1995)
I don't remember when I bought this album, but I've listened to it countless times since. It almost feels like I've had it for my whole life. There will never be another melodic death metal album like it or that can match it, and anyone who disagrees is a ****ing twat. The singer is so ****ing raw that you can almost hear the blood in his throat, and yet he emotes to an extent that I have never heard from an extreme metal singer. He
is nihilism and despair.
Of course he must be so to complement the claustrophobic, relentlessly bleak music that could never be achieved by a band that was any more or less extreme. And those riffs. My god are they badass, yet off-kilter in a way that removes any sense of testosterone or aggression from them, leaving only an alien yet accessible sense of rage, which is perfectly complimented by the crushing yet mechanical, emotionless production.
Slaughter of the Soul was a once in a generation flash-in-the-pan album, and it's no wonder the band broke up after releasing it, cause what was the point in trying to better it?
P.S. And that dual outro of the keyboard track, originally meant to be part of a self-made horror movie by one of the band members, which fades into some of the best feedback of all-time, is quite possibly the best ending to a metal album I've ever heard.