Label: Independent
Date: February 12th, 2022
I guess this is the right time to finally present some band coming from the region where I have lived for more than twelve years. The scene is very good here, but importantly almost totally unknown outside. And I somehow feel it even takes the rest of Sweden. Of course they’re surely maniacs who heard this or another ensemble, but this is still not too many of them and they surely are sitting quite deep into the underground. That’s why I doubt even all metalheads from Hel(l)singborg know that Gutter Instinct was born more or less ten years ago and has two full-lengths and three other releases. The newest of them is just being reviewed by me right now. Well, I’ll be honest now and tell you the truth like catholic during the confession. This is also my very first contact with them, which is a little shameful for me.. Of course this is possible they once played a gig in Malmo I just forgot about it. But I think I wouldn’t do it. However, this band is in some way a continuation of the older one, even if it played other sub-genre of our beloved music.
At any rate, “The Bloodgates” is called by guys EP and is out only in digital format on two platforms. People who know me also know my opinion about this, but this isn’t the place and time to deliberate about that! The huge plus of such a solution is that you don’t have to pay for it at all (at least I didn’t notice there’s even a possibility like that), but for me this is still something like necessary evil. I know that’s probably connected with my age, but what to do if I appreciate more physical copies… Anyways, we can listen to four songs here. Guys call their creativity Death/Black Metal and I have to totally agree with this term, even if in my opinion there’s even more Black Metal elements here. This is mostly about the common atmosphere, but also the way of singing and this Black element reminds me largely of some Finnish band from Oulu where the only original member is legendary Mika Luttinen. But there’s still a lot of Death Metal in the creativity of Hel(l)singborg’s residents. I connect it somehow with old Norwegian ensembles like Cadaver or Old Funeral or even some also old Finnish ones. Swedes play much faster, but still this is more in this kind of mentioned above genre than in the way of playing it which automatically connected with Sweden. Anyways, guys are going forward and if you’re not a good listener you can think there’s no technique at all in this music. But believe me, there’s quite many of that (this is, by the way, difference between this Finnish living legend of extreme Metal existing since 1990 and Norwegian Black Metal in its purest form, at least this one created by some “one man band” – this term sounds ridiculous for me and is totally illogical, by the way). Gutter Instinct plays fast and with no unnecessary shit. There’re of course a little slower parts, but that’s only some kind of the calm before the storm. Anyways, it glows with brutal darkness, maybe even in some way music is raw. At the same time you can recognize that songs are the result of thinking and not only feelings.
As I know our friends don’t plan to release this stuff in any other way like they did actually a few days ago (February, the 12th) what doesn’t mean it’ll don’t happen at all. Especially that I think some label will be, and at least should be, interested in that for sure. I know times have changed, everything must develop and how it is with selling CDs nowadays, but anyway. There’s still many people, especially in our metal “business”, who physical copy value above these digital ones and this is not only about their age. Besides, guys deserve it in my opinion. All the same, if you like such music you should go on one of the platforms I mentioned, I somehow feel I don’t have to name them and you know which ones I mean, and check “The Bloodgates” and other band’s compositions as quickly as you can to do it. I’ll surely come back to this stuff from time to time – I need to serve you reviews of other stuff, so it’ll not be very often, I’m afraid.
