Conqueror is the third full length offering by stoner rockers The Gates Of Slumber. It also fucking sucks! Granted, I’ve never been a big fan of stoner rock, mostly because the terms “stoner rock” and “stoner metal” are just nice ways of saying “Black Sabbath ripoffs”, but, Jesus fucking Christ the shit on Conqueror has been done to death by bands far more talented than these hacks.

The Gates Of Slumber are competent musicians, not that it requires a lot of skill to play this generic shit. They play the typical downtuned and fuzzy riffs that all of the bands of this genre play. The bass and guitar playing on this effort are competent, the drumming is decent, but where the band go to shit is with the song writing and, especially, the vocals.

The song writing is pretty much non-existent. The Gates Of Slumber simply rip off Black Sabbath riffs as well as the riffs of countless Black Sabbath clones and try to pass it off as their own. I’ve literally heard these same riffs and song structures by more than a hundred bands this year alone. Every other promo I get in the mail is some boring-as-fuck stoner rock band. The whole genre is ridiculously boring because everyone would rather smoke dope and play Black Sabbath riffs rather than sit down and write anything new original. I have the same complaint of black metal and Gothenburg melodic death metal too. The newer bands all have the same influences and none of them try to create anything new or unique, they just keep ripping off the successful bands and passing it off as something new. FUCK OFF!

Back to the vocals… frontman Karl Simon is, by far, the single worst singer in all of rock and metal. The guy is simply incapable of singing on key or in tune with the music. Not only that but he has that smoker’s rasp to his vocals, like he just took a really harsh bong hit before stumbling to the microphone to mumble his way through whatever the fuck he’s trying to sing.

I could go on about how bland and generic The Gates Of Slumber are, but I’m pretty sure anyone with decent taste in rock and metal already realize this band is a steaming pile of shit. There are much better “stoner” bands around, don’t even waste your time with this fucking band. I hope Black Sabbath sues these guys, and all of their shitty clones, for royalties. Fuck, this genre sucks!

Review byTeufel