Year : 2024
Style : Heavy Metal , Female vocals
Country : Portugal
Audio : 320 kbps + front
Size : 95 mb
Bio:
Band from Lisbon, Portugal formed in 2021.DOLMEN GATE started when Alex (drums) and Kiko (guitars) started jamming on a few ideas around early 2021. RAVENSIRE (where Alex was drummer) had folded recently but Alex wanted to keep playing Epic Heavy Metal and Kiko was available and had some parts written, so that was the spark that ignited this fire! They recruited Fred as bassist and started writing some stuff. Alex pestered me (Nuno - guitars, also RAVENSIRE) to join them and I, after some resistance, ended up agreeing. Only the vocalist was missing! Then, one day, I was scrolling through facebook and saw a video of Ana (vocals) singing "Burn" by DEEP PURPLE and said to Alex: "it's her!". Even more amazing was the fact that Ana was a longtime friend of basically everyone in the band. So with the lineup complete it was time to write songs and develop our style. Unfortunately, not long after, Fred quit so we kept going without bassist for the time being. After we recorded the demo, I switched to bass and Artur joined as lead guitarist.Our main influences range from the Heavy Metal and Hard Rock classics (MANOWAR, IRON MAIDEN, MANILLA ROAD, BROCAS HELM, SAVATAGE, DEEP PURPLE, THIN LIZZY, OMEN, etc), to more obscure and less obvious stuff (HOLY TERROR, IMMORTAL, old SEPULTURA, WITCHKILLER, etc), to more contemporary stuff (DOOMSWORD, RAM, BATTLEROAR, KILLINGSWORTH, THE LORD WEIRD SLOUGH FEG, SOLSTICE, etc). There are millions of excellent bands from ANY era.
Album:
“Gateways of Eternity” was recorded at Imperial Studios in May 2023.This is an Epic Heavy Metal band from Lisbon, founded in 2021, with two former members of Ravensire. This is their debut album, their demo tape sold out a long time ago. Epic heavy metal is a term thrown about a lot, but this band OWN this style. From the first listen, I am gobsmacked by the power and emotion, helped immensely by the smooth female vocal tones from Ana.‘The Oath’ is majestic, the guitar gallop, the tone of the riffs, its immersive, infectious and has a thunderous drum performance underpinning a truly great track, that’ll go down a storm at Keep It True festival in Germany (the female fronted bands ruled last year IMO). ‘Chambers of Magic’ is a crowd pleaser, out of character it suddenly increases the pace and this is quite a turn of events from the rest of the release. It comes back down in pace terms on occasions, if you take all those elements of Manowar, Solstice, Visigoth, Smoulder et al, you get a complete picture. Dolmen Gate play out influences and hammer a great piece of music as their own in the process. ‘Horizon’s Call’ provides a more doom inspired approach. Again, there are places within this track that glamorizes fist and beer raising along the journey, the bridge leading into the solo hammers home well founded strength, I like the touch of double kick drumming during this too. ‘Retribution’ hits hard at its start. It’s a battle royal, crushing ones enemies and taking the fantasy element to another level. ‘Rest in Flames’ is pure early Manowar, galloping strength, power, and kicks your arse, this is a crowd pleaser.The overall presentation of this album should sit high with all fans of this sub-genre. There is plenty of power, epic metal sensibilities are on display at every single quarter of this release. This is one of the most enjoyable albums I have listened to this year, it’s truly great, they should be very successful and on the tip of everyone’s tongue when this album is released. Steller work, as mentioned early, but I’ll summarize, it is a power and majestic take on the epic heavy metal spectrum taking on influences from all the trailblazers. Dolmen Gate are paving their own path and succeed giving the listener many minutes of listening pleasure.
Line Up:
Ana - Vocals (2021-present)
Artur - Guitars (2022-present)
Kiko - Guitars (2021-present) - See also: Nagasaki Sunrise (live)
Nuno - Guitars (2021-2022), Bass (2022-present) - See also: ex-Ravensire
Alex - Drums (2021-present) - See also: Midnight Priest, Nagasaki Sunrise, Vürmo, Flageladör (live), ex-Ravensire, ex-The Unholy
Production:
Logo by Miguel Beco
Artwork by Márcio Blasphemator
Group photo by Luís Jordão
Live photos by Sónia Ferreira and @ihatecephalopods
Tracklist:
01. Dolmen Gate 00:56
02. Rest in Flames 04:08
03. The Oath 05:20
04. Chambers of Magic 04:04
05. The Wheel 04:58
06. Retribution 05:24
07. Horizon's Call 06:14
08. Betrayal 07:53
09. Gateways of Eternity 00:41
Download links for all albums only on our blog here: http://goodmetalandhar.do.am/
