Gothenburg's AT THE GATES released their fourth album "Slaughter of the Soul" on November 14, 1995, through Earache Records — the record that wrote the rulebook for melodic death metal. Wanting something more direct and brutal than the complex, technical style of their first two albums, Tomas Lindberg, Anders Björler, Martin Larsson, Jonas Björler and Adrian Erlandsson recorded it between May and July 1995 at Studio Fredman with producer Fredrik Nordström, spending about three weeks on the rhythm guitar tone alone. KING DIAMOND guitarist Andy LaRocque added a guest solo to "Cold", while "Blinded by Fear" and the title track became genre anthems, the latter later ranked among Rolling Stone's 100 greatest heavy metal songs. The album is credited with establishing the Gothenburg sound and is widely seen as a key influence on the American metalcore wave of the early 2000s. It was also the band's last statement before an eleven-year split.
