The7thGatekeeper is an artist who pulls equally from the crushing weight of Tool and Slipknot and the honest storytelling of Jason Isbell and Tyler Childers. Recording in what he calls his “home chaos cupboard,” there’s a deliberate roughness to everything here.
“These nine tracks are heavy enough to crush you, honest enough to hold you: choose your own ratio.”
This album tackles everything from personal nightmares to systemic corruption, from relationship struggles to inherited trauma. The opening track shows that we’re dealing with the kind of darkness you can’t outrun, the psychological weight that’s “always been there.” This is music for people who understand that some battles aren’t about winning. The variety across these nine tracks keeps things interesting. You’ve got cryptic storytelling about shadows and lakes, instrumental passages that let the guitars do the talking, and moments of surprising tenderness.
Tracks like “The Hoard” go straight for the throat, calling out greed, corruption, and the concentration of power with lines about bullet sellers and blood on sand. In a genre that’s always thrived on rage against broken systems, this track earns its place. The closing track delivers on the nightmarish promise of its title. Based on an actual bad dream, it captures that helpless feeling of sleep paralysis and half-conscious terror. The instrumental track of the album, “Baryon ii”, is a “heavy subatomic particle” of pure sound that lets the album’s density settle before continuing.
The production might not be pristine, but that’s a feature. This sounds like it was made by someone who needed to get these songs out of their system, tracking and mixing in a home setup. The7thGatekeeper mentions this is just the beginning, that he’s still developing his recording and mixing chops. If this is the starting point, the trajectory looks promising. “Around This Edge Together” is not trying to be an easy listen, so anyone who appreciates music that challenges them will find plenty to dig into here.
The7thGatekeeper is building something here, and it’s worth watching where it goes next.
Muse Chronicle 
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