New Jersey indie band Gates are re-releasing their album ’You Are All You Have Left To Fear’ with all the tracks being remixed and re-mastered by Mike Watts at Vu Du Studios, as well as being accompanied by bonus track ‘Skyline’. For those who are unfamiliar, Gates are a 5-piece indie / alternative band that have been going for around two years now. In that time they’ve released two EPs off of their own back with the overall response being mostly positive, especially when Devildance Records saw their vinyl pressing of the debut EP sell out within an hour. Fast forward to April of this year and Gates sign to Pure Noise Records, with this re-release being their first output as a member of the Pure Noise family. I, personally, am in the same boat as I assume a lot of people who will be picking up the re-release will be in – in that I haven’t heard the older version of this EP. So I feel the need to point out here that this review is from the view of someone taking a completely fresh look at the record.
Instrumentally, there’s a heavy post-rock influence that is prominent right from opening track ‘They See Only Shadows’. The track actually starts fairly upbeat, with recurring snare hits that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Springsteen song, only to get slower the more the song gets stretched over it’s nearly 6-minute clock-in time. Not once does it get boring though, as Gates have the ability to create such incredible atmospheric instrumental parts of their songs that Kevin Dye’s vocals pair with amazingly. You’ll be relieved to know that the high quality of the opener is kept up as the record moves on. As we move through songs such as ‘Cast In The Pattern’ and ’The Sound Of Letting Go’, Gates experiment with different tempos while all together keeping the same base sound which lets the album flow quite nicely from track to track, yet still keep our attention as we’re not too sure what’s going to happen next.
‘Skyline’ is the one track that everyone listening to this record wont be fully familiar with, as it wasn’t included on the original release. Sometimes I feel like bonus tracks are only there to sell some more copies of the record or to bulk the track list out a little bit. If you go away with any information from this review, at the very least let it be this – that is definitely not the case when it comes to this re-release. ‘Skyline’ is every bit as good as the tracks before it, if not better, and fits in just perfectly as if it was part of this record all along. It is also arguably the most powerful sounding of the lot, making it a pretty perfect song to end on by all accounts.
A lot of people seem to notice the post-rock part of Gates’ sound and focus on that when writing about them. It’s understandable, as it is arguably the thing that stands out the most especially with the level of production on this re-release. When you look a little bit further than that, though, and take in some of the more up-beat tracks on this record like ‘Like This You Mean’, ‘Cast In The Pattern’ and ‘The Sound of Letting Go’ you’re letting yourself in for a whole other side of this band. The post-rock influence is still there, but in these tracks in particular I hear something a little more than that. I hear the influence of the popular 90s emo sound (of bands such as Mineral, The Promise Ring and Braid to same just a few). The similarities between those bands and Gates might not have hit you straight away, but hopefully you’ll hear it now I’ve mentioned it and you’ll have a whole new appreciation for what Gates are trying to do, and how successfully they’re executing it.
In summary, Gates have found an almost perfect middle ground between the emotion of bands like Mineral, and the atmospheric instrumentals of bands like Explosions In The Sky. It might sound like a weird mix, but trust me, with a little bit of Gates’ own unique touch – it works.
4/5
‘You Are All You Have Left To Fear’ by Gates is out now on Pure Noise Records.
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Words by Joe Hart (@nottheJoeHart)
