Maximum Metal Rating Legend

WOW, I've really been looking forward to this release. After listening to the Twelfth Gate demo for months now, I finally have the debut disc in my hands.

Its great to see this American band get a label deal with Crash Music, as this pounding slab of metal really needs to be available to metal fans worldwide. And metal fans will find plenty to like with Summoning, 11 tracks of truly fascinating musical bliss. The first two songs, Mortal Coil and Desire Brings, hit the listener with a relentless force sure to please extreme metal fans, while the soaring vocals of Scott Huffman will delight power metal fans throughout. Traditional fans will also love tracks like Orpheus, while new metal fans will surely love the hard rock sounds of Waiting In Shadows and Wheel Of Life, which offer a Black Label Society-type heavy groove.

Twelfth Gate are a band that offers something totally different to the listener. This is by no means a verse-chorus-verse-chorus band, as Twelfth Gate takes the listener on emotional and musical rides of diversity and imagination, never dulling the moment and always keeping the listener on their toes. Songs such as Flames Of Anger start out slow, and build to a violent crescendo, while other pulse-pounders like Innocent drive straight to the point with meaty hooks and a grinding rythm that bash with an uncompromising will to deliver the goods.

The group really has no boundaries, taking the best elements of hard rock, power metal, prog and even the Cathedral-Sabbath doom and gloom (just listen to Bridge Of Uncertainty!) to create their own brand of metal, a brand that in my opionion is exciting and fresh. Twelfth Gate have stepped into the netherworld of great bands like Nevermore and Queensryche, taking what they need from past metal glory and creating a new metal landscape, a landscape rich with diversity, creativity, and imagination. This combined with a little hardwork...well, lets just say the bright future of metal lies behind the Twelfth Gate.

Lets just hope that gate swings wide enough, because in the near future alot of people are going to be rushing in.