Artist: Keys To The Astral Gates And Mystic Doors
Country: USA
Label: Empty Pit Recordings
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2025
Depending on where you’re looking, ‘Anathema’, the latest offering from Keys To The Astral Gates And Mystic Doors, is either a demo or a promo. Perhaps a rather superfluous discussion, but a demo usually serves a different purpose than a promo. The latter is often a preview of an upcoming full-length album, featuring a few, usually rougher recordings that will reappear on the record. Only time will tell if that is the case, but for now we can focus on this latest piece of music from the band that seems to have become best known for their long name and, in particular, their legendary illegible logo.
People who have been familiar with the previously released material by Keys To The Astral Gates And Mystic Doors will undoubtedly be delighted with these three new songs – the physical release on cassette tape, by the way, has an exclusive fourth track. Music wise, ‘Anathema’ is a blatant continuation of the tried and tested formula. Tried and tested, yes, and not only by these guys.
Although Keys To The Astral Gates And Mystic Doors might have pushed some boundaries in messy logos, on the musical side of things, they are pretty standard and traditional. Yet, don’t get me wrong, standard and traditional in a very good way. This is the sort of Black Metal that was en vogue around the turn of the millennium. Repetitive and melancholic, drenched in a thoroughly raw and almost lo-fi production, it brings you back some quarter century. A period in Black Metal that I truly love and helped reshape how we all experience the Black Metal genre as a whole. So, a certain sense of nostalgia and a good dose of excellent song craftsmanship again makes for a splendid bit of contemporary Black Metal – probably played by lads who weren’t even born in 2000. But well, that doesn’t detract from the quality on offer: this remains an essential band in the current Black Metal firmament.
