Normally Swedish death metal worship consists of aping Dismember and Entombed riffs while the guitar tone is condemned to HM-2 hell. Typhonian, however, worship a different strain of Swede: Unleashed. Sophomore effort The Gate of the Veiled Beyond transforms the already competent death metal present on debut Beneath the Streams of Life and the EP that introduced me to them – The Cosmic Pendulum of Time – into a relic that feels like listening to a proper old-school melodic death metal album that’s not just Gothenburg worship. Aside from already being familiar with this band, it was the beautiful cover art (done by Juanjo Castellano) that drew me in. I haven’t heard bands worshiping Unleashed, specifically Across the Open Sea era before, so that was a nice surprise upon pressing play and listening to the first proper track after the intro. However, this is not a short album, and while the music is largely serviceable, not everything works.
Brevity is the key to success on The Gate of the Veiled Beyond. The best tracks on here contain a sense of urgency, strong riffs, and beautiful mournful solos that do an excellent job highlighting the bright lead tone to add a sorrowful sheen. The highlight is “Primal Deceptive Light”, and this is where the Unleashed-isms really come into play after being hinted at on “Cosmic Throne”. “Primal Deceptive Light” opens with an acoustic passage before transitioning into a furious melodic death metal burst, eventually culminating in the best solo on the album before returning to that same acoustic motif and closing. Production is crystal clear as well, with none other than the legendary Dan Swanö himself in charge. Unfortunately, problems start to emerge not long into the album. Bloat is the most common problem, with “The Gatekeeper” and megalithic closing track “Cath’un – The Gate of the Veiled Beyond” being the greatest offenders. While “The Gatekeeper” injects a healthy dose of sorrowful doom into the melodic death metal almost justifying its length, “Cath’un” is much too long. At nineteen and a half minutes, the song is littered with odd choices: spoken word vocals and clean singing that would mesh well if done well, but these are added in such a fashion that’s more of a clumsy misstep in what’s supposed to be an epic closer. A few of the tracks are also too mid-paced and feel restrained when there’s an energy about them begging to be released to inject more life. However, Typhonian have crafted a solid sophomore full-length, and while it won’t appear on many year-end lists, it’s good for a couple spins and shows that old-school Swedish death metal worship can be more than the same buzzsaw guitar tones recycled ad nauseam.
