Three years ago, Arizona death metal monsters Gatecreeper released their scintillating surprise album An Unexpected Reality -- one side of harsh, hardcore-influenced minute-long blurts, one side that was just an 11-minute funeral-doom epic. It fucking rules. Frontman Chase Mason was quick to explain that the record was more of a digression than a new direction, but then Gatecreeper didn't release anything else for a while. Now, they're finally back with a new single, and it's a banger.
Right now, Gatecreeper's new song "Caught In The Treads" is a one-off, but I'm holding out hope that there's more on the way. Converge's Kurt Ballou produced and mixed the track, and it sounds huge. Here, Gatecreeper to for full-on '80s thrash glory, and the riffs are a lot cleaner and catchier than what I've come to expect from this band. If you told me that this was an unreleased Power Trip track, I wouldn't argue.
In a press release, Chase Mason says that the song is "about a supernaturally charged fleet of tanks that have been possessed by the souls of fallen soldiers." Hell yeah. I love that kind of explanation. The "Caught In The Treads" video is mostly headbang-happy live-show footage, and you can watch it below.
"Caught In The Treads" is out now on Nuclear Blast.
