I’m going to forgo the history lesson and assume if you are reading this, you are familiar with At The Gates and their place in the annals of melodic death metal and are simply wanting to find out how To Drink From the Night Itself stands as a follow up the 19 years in waiting comeback of 2014’s At War With Reality.

Well, as with follow ups to a much anticipated or long awaited reunion or comeback, there is some cool off from  the the initial comeback album’s hype and 19 year build up. Throw in Jonas Stahlhammer (God Macabre, Bombs of Hades) replacing original guitarist Anders Bjorler as well as  more muted, raw production from Russ Russell (Lock Up, Naplam Death, The Haunted),  the end result is  bit of a step back from At War With Reality, but certainly an instantly recognizable At The Gates album that does not hurt the band’s legacy.

As with”Death and the Labyrinth” from At War With Reality, after a brief intro, “To Drink from the Night Itself” open the album proper with that familiar, infamous “Blinded By Fear” hack n slash gait that shows the band certainly isn’t reinventing the wheel, but reminding you how goddamn well done their particular wheel was.

Despite the less crisp production, and attempts the album makes to be a bit darker and moodier (i.e.”Daggers of Black Haze”, “The Colours of the Beast”, closer “The Mirror Black”-with a song closing orchestral/choral teaser that should have been used more),  the veterans are far more adept at their trademark, slashing, thrashing, genre defining sound has heard on “The Chasm”,  “In Nameless Sleep”, “A Labyrinth of Tombs”, or  familiar sounding throwback riffs of “Seas of Starvation” and “In Death They Shall Burn”, two of the album’s fiercest tracks . Even if the mix has the guitars a little less razor sharp than you’d expect, with a little more tearing than pure, clean slices, it’s still compact and punchy.

Tomas Lindberg is of course Lindberg and still sounds as great as he ever has, but to be honest, his recent Sign of Cain effort is his best project he’s done recently. Yes, even better than this. Heresy, I know. To Drink From the Night Itself is still a solid album and definitely an At The Gates album.

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