Montrals Phobocosm return with Gateway, an unrelenting and eldritch death metal opus that seals one chapter while unveiling the next.
The album includes material from every songwriting period of the band, some of it dating back to the Deprived and Bringer of Drought eras, as well as Foreordained, of course, explains guitarist Samuel Dufour.
Gateway was recorded, mixed, and mastered by long-time collaborator Xavier Berthiaume (Gevurah, Sanctvs) during the same session as Foreordained, giving the two records a consistent sonic throughline, while allowing Gateway to close established narratives. We view it as the closing of a chapter for the band, Dufour continues. Not that our future material will be completely different from our existing material, far from it, but we have decided to do things a little differently next time around by adding new elements that havent appeared in our music before, exploring different dynamics and experimenting with a new tuning.
Thematically Gateway grows from ideas first explored on Foreordained: The song Revival from Foreordained inspired the albums theme, which is the fact that humans have been trying to live forever or to unnaturally prolong life since the dawn of time, often for reasons even more absurd than the pursuit of eternal life itself, elaborates Dufour.
We used this as the main theme and pushed the concept further, exploring the most repulsive forms of cruelty humans are capable of even when using science as a means to prolong barbarity against their enemies. Visually the album continues Phobocosms collaboration with Lauri Laaksonen (Desolate Shrine, Convocation, Pestilent Hex). From looking at it, one can see that it is a gateway to something ominous, but what lies beyond is up to the listener. Phobocosm will support Gateway with select North American performances, followed by European dates in 2026.