24 January 2024 - 0 Comments

“Writing catchy songs has always been the goal for Gatecreeper. It’s all about the riffs.” Gatecreeper vocalist and co-songwriter Chase H. Mason doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to discussing his band’s modus operandi. For a genre in which many closed-minded zealots see catchiness as a dirty word, Gatecreeper go hard against the grain of the old school death metal revival. Mason explains. “We wanted big hooks and catchy leads while still being extreme and aggressive.”

It’s on this basis that Gatecreeper’s second and latest full-length, Deserted, takes death metal from its 80's Floridian roots and 90's Swedish expansion straight into the here and now. In fact, the vanguard of death metal in 2024 can be found under Arizona’s searing sun. That’s where Gatecreeper’s members make their homes, spread across the twin frying pans of Phoenix and Tucson.

The band nodded to their scorching home state with the title of their 2016 full-length debut, Sonoran Depravation. The theme continues on Deserted, which boasts songs like Sweltering Madness, Boiled Over, a song that fuses classic Bolt Thrower with the pulverizing power grooves of sludge titans Crowbar. Absence Of Light upholds Gatecreeper’s tradition of finishing their records with a slower track. “I really like death/doom and funeral doom sort of stuff, so the goal was to try that style out but stay close to the Gatecreeper format,” Mason says. A format the Aotearoa will surely love.

April 2nd 2024 - Whammy, Auckland

ON SALE Friday, January 26, 10am

UTR.co.nz or https://bit.ly/GatecreeperNZ

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