File Of Ghosts is a Finnish one man lo-fi death metal project by Sami, who plays this music as a hobby in his garage. It seems that he’s enjoyed himself pretty good playing death metal, for here we are with his first demo record entitled The Gates. Let’s review.

 

At first I was a bit scared of this record, scared of it being utter crap. But a quick listen on his myspace made me change my mind and even convinced me to check it out. I don’t mind lo-fi recordings too much (I consider myself to be a Striborg expert), but I haven’t heard too many death metal acts do this to be honest. The Gates offer six tracks of this music, and I have to say that the song writing quality is actually quite good. Overall the production sounds very underground, but I have to say that instead of that facts decreasing the fun of the record, I think it enhances the listening pleasure and gives an authentic feel to the record. It sort of adds a black metal vibe to the music, especially because of the vocals used by Sami and the keyboard elements in the songs.

 

The use of a drum computer doesn’t really bother me that much either, and all in all this review is starting to look like I really enjoyed listening to this disc. This is partially true, as of course I like to listen to an over-produced, tight as fuck, big studio budget death metal record just the same. It’s just that I think this sounds just as, if not even more, sincere as one of those records. I for one hope Sami poops out some more of this lo-fi stuff sometime soon!