Slaughter of the Soul

Slaughter of the Soul is the fourth studio album by Swedish melodic death metal band At the Gates, released on 14 November 1995 by Earache Records. It was their last album before their eleven-year breakup from 1996 to 2007. Slaughter of the Soul is considered a landmark in melodic death metal and played a major role in popularizing the Gothenburg scene, alongside The Jester Race by In Flames and The Gallery by Dark Tranquillity.^[1] The album was recorded and mixed in Studio Fredman, early 1995.

Slaughter of the Soul
Studio album by At the Gates
Released	14 November 1995 (1995-11-14)
Recorded	May–July 1995
Studio	Studio Fredman, Gothenburg, Sweden
Genre	Melodic death metal
Length	34:10
Label	Earache
Producer	Fredrik Nordström
At the Gates chronology
Terminal Spirit Disease (1994) Slaughter of the Soul (1995) At War with Reality (2014)

Music journalist T Coles described the album's sound as "melodic and weird", saying that At the Gates were "cleaner" than fellow Swedish death metal band Entombed, yet "dirtier" than the technical death metal bands of the United States.^[2]

Andy LaRocque's neo-classical guest solo on "Cold" was widely acclaimed as one of the greatest metal solos^{[citation needed]} and guitarist Anders Björler admitted in 2007 that he still could not play it properly.^[3]

"Blinded by Fear" was covered by The Haunted (composed largely of ex-At the Gates members) on their Japanese version of their live/double disc album Live Rounds in Tokyo and was also covered by Fleshgod Apocalypse on their Mafia EP. The song also appeared in the game Rock Band 2 as downloadable content.

Style

According to Vlad Nichols of Ultimate Guitar, At the Gates "officiated the birth of the characteristic Gothenburg sound" with Slaughter of the Soul.^[4]

Appearances in media

Tracks from the album have made appearances in several video games.

• "Blinded by Fear" was made available as downloadable content for the Rock Band video game series on March 28, 2008. Later, it was included in the game's retail "Metal Track Pack" add-on content disc, released on September 22, 2009 in North America. The song is considered one of the most difficult songs in the series to perform on drums, due to its fast tempo.^[5]
• The title track is featured in both Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground.

Reissues

A 2002 Reissue contained 11 tracks from the original 1995 release of Slaughter of the Soul, plus 6 bonus audio tracks. Three of the bonus tracks were cover songs, two were demo tracks, and 1 was a previously unreleased track, recorded during the Slaughter of the Soul sessions. The 2006 reissue contained everything from the 2002 reissue, but also included an additional bonus DVD, which featured a 35-minute behind-the-scenes documentary as the highlight. The 2008 reissue contains everything from the 2002 and 2006 rereleases (all audio and DVD material), as well as additional DVD footage—an eight-song live set, recorded in Kraków, Poland on December 30, 1995.

Reception

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
About.com	[6]
AllMusic	[7]
Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal	8/10[8]
Rock Hard	7/10[9]
Sputnikmusic	[10]

Reviews for Slaughter of the Soul have been highly positive, acclaiming the album as a landmark record in the development of the Swedish death metal scene. AllMusic's Steve Huey awarded the album five stars and called it an "excellent example of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal, and certainly the band's best and most focused album to date."^[7] Rock Hard, however, thinks the band has become interchangeable with its many clones,^[11] and Deathmetal.org labels it At the Gates' sellout album, sounding like "Metallica attempting ...And Justice For All in a stylistic mashup between Iron Maiden and Judas Priest during Painkiller."^[12]

Accolades

In 2005, the album was ranked number 300 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.^[13] Metal Injection ranked Slaughter of the Soul eighth on their list "Top 10 Influential Heavy Metal Albums".^[14] The album was inducted into the Decibel Magazine Hall of Fame in March 2005, being the second album overall to receive such award.^[15] In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked Slaughter of the Soul as 79th on their list of "The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".^[16] The same magazine later ranked the title track number eighty-seven on their list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs of All Time"^[17]

Track listing

No.	Title	Music	Length
1.	"Blinded by Fear"	A. Björler	3:12
2.	"Slaughter of the Soul"		3:02
3.	"Cold"		3:27
4.	"Under a Serpent Sun"	A. Björler	4:00
5.	"Into the Dead Sky" (instrumental)		2:12
6.	"Suicide Nation"	A. Björler	3:35
7.	"World of Lies"	A. Björler, J. Björler, Larsson	3:35
8.	"Unto Others"		3:11
9.	"Nausea"	A. Björler	2:23
10.	"Need"		2:36
11.	"The Flames of the End" (instrumental)	A. Björler, Johansson, Lindberg	2:57
Total length:			34:10

All lyrics are written by Lindberg; all music is composed by A. Björler and J. Björler, except where noted.

2002 reissue bonus tracks

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
12.	"Legion" (Slaughter Lord cover)		3:54
13.	"The Dying" (Unreleased track from Slaughter of the Soul sessions)		3:18
14.	"Captor of Sin" (Slayer cover)	Hanneman, King	3:19
15.	"Unto Others" ('95 Demo)		3:06
16.	"Suicide Nation" ('95 Demo)		3:22
17.	"Bister Verklighet" (No Security cover)		1:55

2006 reissue bonus DVD

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Making of Slaughter of the Soul"
2.	"Deleted Scenes"
3.	"Blinded by Fear" (music video)

2008 reissue bonus DVD

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Terminal Spirit Disease" (live in Kraków, Poland)
2.	"Cold" (live in Kraków, Poland)
3.	"The Swarm" (live in Kraków, Poland)
4.	"Blinded by Fear" (live in Kraków, Poland)
5.	"Nausea" (live in Kraków, Poland)
6.	"Forever Blind" (live in Kraków, Poland)
7.	"Need" (live in Kraków, Poland)
8.	"Kingdom Gone" (live in Kraków, Poland)
9.	"Making of Slaughter of the Soul"
10.	"Deleted Scenes"
11.	"Blinded by Fear" (music video)

Personnel

Writing, performance and production credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.^[18]

At the Gates

• Tomas Lindberg − vocals
• Anders Björler − guitar, phaser drums on "Into the Dead Sky"
• Martin Larsson − guitar
• Jonas Björler − bass
• Adrian Erlandsson − drums

Additional personnel

• Andy LaRocque − guitar solo on "Cold"

Production

• Fredrik Nordström − production
• At the Gates – co-production
• Noel Summerville − mastering
• Kristian Wåhlin − artwork, logo
• Absolute Design Associates – additional artwork and layout
• Frequent Form – logo concept
• Studio Fredman, Gothenburg, Sweden – recording, mixing
• Transfermation – mastering

Charts

Chart	Peak position
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[19]	200