- The Pyre The City Gates 3:38
After releasing their Forever Orbiter album in 2018 on Northern Light Records (who has released albums from Actors, Black Ferns, Leathers, Rev Rev Rev), Montreal post-punk-gaze outfit The City Gates returns with their awaited forthcoming LP Age of Resilience via their own imprint Velouria Recordz in collaboration with Icy Cold Records. The City Gates draw its influences in their 80’s and 90’s alternative musical taste, and artists like The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Chameleons, The Sisters of Mercy, Slowdive, Sonic Youth, and Love and Rockets.
“Age of Resilience” presents a sound of nostalgic glimmers of raw, intense, melodic and powerful textures. According to Post-Punk.com, the LP offers 11 tracks of “dark melancholia aesthetical soundscape, heaping on reverb, fuzz, and delay”. It also features the band’s three singles, Cape of Good Hope, Siegfried 1969 (feat.Vlimmer) and Roman Empire, released throughout the years 2019 and 2020, which have reached several top song charts. The new City Gates album is inspired by the historical and social realities of the last decades.
In addition, Age of Resilience refers to the lyrics of the band’s single Cape of Good Hope, which talks about resilience. “Over the past two years, we, as a band, have had to deal with a lot of things: death, divorce, mental issues”, says bassist Jean. “We can add to that the contemporary social turmoil. Then, the Trump presidency, this worldwide pandemic, and the fact that we, band members, are not young adults anymore. In a sort of way, our fighting rebellious days are long behind us. You get what for us represents our age of resilience.”
“For this album, states bass player’s Jean, we composed almost half of it right after we released our Forever Orbiter album. We composed as we always did. Recording our rehearsals and picking up the pick of the litter, the hidden gems. For the other half, we worked completely differently. Because of the COVID outbreak, band practices were impossible. We had to rely on our home studios to share ideas.
Lyrics-wise, continues Jean, we somehow changed our approach, trying to get creative input from everybody, and giving songs their own different flavors.” In the past, The City Gates shared stages with notable acts like Trisomie 21, Actors, Bootblacks, The Foreign Resort, Nothing, The Veldt, Deserta, to name a few., toured in the U.K, the USA, Canada and played the Kalamashoegazer, Focus Wales, and Canadian Music Week festivals. While their last North American tour was canceled due to the pandemic situation, the band played live streaming shows throughout the year such as DKFM’s DreamGaze, Independencia Sónica, and Dark Spring Boston festivals (alongside Yama Uba and L’Avenir).
SOURCE: Official Bio
Photo credit Laurine Haddock.
LINKS:
https://thecitygates.bandcamp.com
http://www.soundcloud.com/thecitygates
https://www.facebook.com/thecitygatesmusic
https://twitter.com/TheCityGates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXEw3RYvTvQ
https://www.instagram.com/thecitygate
