Gates Open have released The Black Gates, the final song to come out before Beyond The Black Gates, which Inverse Records puts out on 10 December.
It is also track one, which makes the campaign tidier than most: the three songs the duo have shown are The Blood On Their Hands, The Black Scorpion and now the opener, so the record begins where the run of singles ended.
The song follows someone walking through the dark carrying everything that has already gone wrong, until a call from somewhere ahead turns the despair into something more like resignation. The band leave the other side of the gate alone on purpose. As they put it, the answer to what awaits beyond the darkness is left for the listener to decide.
The Finnish two piece are newer than they sound. Vocalist Tommi Manninen and guitarist Jere Neejarvi only started this in early 2023, though they first played together in another band in 2007, and the debut Voice After Silence arrived in February 2024 with the six track EP Black Clouds Over the World that October. Neejarvi plays the guitars, bass and drums on the new one and mixed and mastered it himself.
Ten songs, and the physical run is listed at a hundred copies.