Rising like a mythical creature summoned from the unplumbed abyssal depths, Gateway immediately takes to stomping on hapless souls on land, gaining momentum despite its immeasurable girth and flattening objects into oblivion. Covered in slime and rot, the fearsome, inexorable entity reeks of a primordial evil conjured only by forbidden rituals. The Belgian band harnesses the power of both death and doom metal to unleash a catastrophe of biblical proportions, ruthless in its execution and dealing powerful blows with finality. The music plods on with wicked fervour, driven solely by purpose, and it doesn’t take long for the act to complete. ‘Galgendoon’ is imbued with a sense of medieval ritualistic horror and primal barbarism and offers an engrossing and delightfully punishing experience, something that few bands are able to pull off with conviction, not to mention sheer might. Albums such as this one are conjured up very rarely, and they are every bit as good as one would imagine them to be.