Welsh solo artist The7thGatekeeper dropped his second album “Around This Edge Together” on November 21st, pulling from influences that shouldn’t work together on paper but somehow do. The project blends heavy guitar music from Slipknot, Muse, Korn, and Tool with the storytelling sensibilities of Americana artists like Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, and Tyler Childers. Everything on this nine-track album was recorded and mixed in what he calls his “chaos cupboard” at home in Barry, South Wales, with the final track mixed and all tracks mastered by Romesh Dodangoda at Longwave Studios in Cardiff. Since his debut album “Breakdowns or Breakthroughs” and covers EP “No One Was Saved” earlier this year, The7thGatekeeper has upgraded his recording rig with Audioscape hardware and improved his skills with each release. The result is raw, unapologetic, and personal, tackling everything from bad dreams to love letters to his wife to frustration with global events.
“Not to Be Taken” sweeps you off your feet with how evil the main riff sounds. The song is more like a brief ritual than a traditional song with a structured form. The lyrics chant “It’s always there”, and your mind engages in psychedelic paranoia at the eldritch potential of that phrase. It simultaneously walks the line between being horrifying and beautiful music, which is arguably the most metal thing you can do, because that’s how it all began with the song “Black Sabbath”.
I had to highlight the song “5588” because of its hypnotic bass riff intro. With The7thGatekeeper‘s vocals in the intro, it sounds like a soft Slipknot-inspired intro, but when the drums and guitars join that bass, it starts sounding more like doom metal. It’s a really unique song, and its heaviness is tangible, not artificially manufactured. You can play this song on an acoustic guitar, and it will still sound heavy; that’s how good it is.
The heaviness lingers over the next few tracks, like “Amulet” with a more funky groove and “The Hoard” with a more grimy grunge-based sound, with even some of that ambient experimentation coming back in. “Baryon li” serves as the harbinger of the second half of this album, as it’s a short instrumental reprieve that starts out like a thrash metal riff and ends up in ambient soundscapes.
“Wrapped” it’s like entering a whole new dimension with its haunting piano lines moving swiftly in the background as The7thGatekeeper‘s vocals float over them. I won’t spoil the lyrics here because you need to be taken on this journey for yourself. It’s reminiscent of Mariusz Duda’s Lunatic Soul project. An ethereal piece that feels bigger than life.
“Inamorata” is a short poem of love to his wife. The poem navigates their love for each other and some hardships and health problems they went through together. The7thGatekeeper is experimenting with new sounds and artistic journeys, and every song on this second half is a testament to his diversity and depth as an artist.
Finally, we arrive at what The7thGatekeeper describes as the anchor track of this album: “(Fear) Wet State”. It describes a very real and very bad dream that he once had. He had already been workshopping a Tool-style riff and groove and found that the lyrics describing that dream fit perfectly over it. The result is a combination of his lyric-focused songs and his heavy groove-based songs. It’s a genius choice to end the album here. After you have experienced the heaviness of the first half and the quiet introspection of the second half, they merge beautifully here.
“Around This Edge Together” works because The7thGatekeeper isn’t afraid to follow his instincts even when they lead him from doom metal to Americana-influenced introspection. The DIY recording approach adds authenticity rather than feeling like a limitation, and the progression from his first album shows genuine growth. Romesh Dodangoda’s involvement on the final track and mastering helps elevate the production without polishing away the rawness that makes this project compelling. For a solo artist working out of a home studio in South Wales, blending Slipknot with Jason Isbell shouldn’t work, but here it does. The album proves The7thGatekeeper has something to say, even if he’s still figuring out exactly what that is.
