THE GATES OF SLUMBER have completed work on its new studio album Hymns Of Blood & Thunder. The album is slated to drop in North America on September 13th via Rise Above Records.

According to a press release, The Gates Of Slumber encapsulates the metal experience for true believers. The Indianapolis doom metal trio formed in the late 1990’s with the goal of creating a band whose sound delivered an updated take on the member’s long list of favorite heavy metal greats. Weaned on BLACK SABBATH, ST. VITUS, the melodic might of IRON MAIDEN and a host of classic bands from THIN LIZZY to RAINBOW to MERCYFUL FATE, The Gates Of Slumber draw deep from heavy metal's most powerful blood and deliver doom in its purest form.

The band’s hotly anticipated new album, Hymns Of Blood & Thunder, drops on the heels of the brightest and busiest year in the respected power trio’s history; one that saw The Gates Of Slumber pack clubs during its first US headlining tour and land atop many year-end media polls with Conqueror, an album that was hailed as “a breath of fresh air within the doom / true metal underground.”

Recorded in Chicago’s Semaphore Studios with producer Sanford Parker (NACHTMYSTIUM, Pelican), The Gates Of Slumber unleashes its holy grail in the formidable Hymns of Blood & Thunder. A mighty document of both powerful songwriting and instrumental skull-crushing, the album is heavy and chillingly bleak; in an almost unrelenting way that hasn't been heard since Judas Priest's heyday (Sad Wings of Destiny, Sin After Sin, etc.). Displaying a powerful focus and direction and demonstrating a very compelling emotional range, The Gates Of Slumber have upped its levels of both technique and melody, resulting in an album that is at once frighteningly dark in its effect, tight in its grooves and unrivaled in its sheer power.

"Just prior to the band’s 2008 U.S. headlining tour, I started working on songs for the new record with the goal in mind that it had to be a step forward for us compositionally as well as production wise,” The Gates Of Slumber frontman / guitarist Karl Simon remarks. “I knew that I personally wanted to work on more integrated and composed solos to allow for different sides of me to come out - sides that are more influenced by Judas Priest and The Scorpions, rather than the flurries of hammer-ons that I owe to Tony Iommi and Wino. The songs are more aggressive, more riff-y this time, but they also retain the musical elements that we've explored over the last couple of records. Lyrically it's a continuation of our obsession with war, and death and the fantasy worlds where those things are all so common and cool."

Hymns of Blood & Thunder is a sinister, muscular collection that ties the disparate strands of the band’s style together while jacking the adrenaline rush up to previously undreamed-of levels. The group is at the absolute peak of its powers in terms of technical execution and the result is a hard, driving sound that is faster and louder. From the moment the album’s battering-ram sound kicks in all the way through to its ominous title track closer, the group’s fourth full length rocks with a classic heavy-metal vengeance and a hooky, driving momentum that's usually absent in metal's doomy end. Like it or not, heavy metal is here, there and everywhere and The Gates Of Slumber scores a headbanger's bull's-eye with Hymns of Blood & Thunder.

"I started working on Hymns of Blood & Thunder almost immediately after the Conqueror sessions,” Simon continues. “From the first moment I began work on the music for this record, I knew that it was going to surpass everything on Conqueror; and it has. Each of the songs travels through its own movement. In place of "the epic song" or "the fast song" each of these tracks takes its turn being that: 'Chaos Calling' is fast, but in the bridging mid-section you will be surprised by the feel change. 'Beneath The Eye Of Mars' is a grinding death march, until we invoke the deep influence of classic '70's metal in the song’s “pause before the final fall”. The album has its lush surprises as well. We've grown, and being true to that are not forgetting all that we have learned."

The final track listing for Hymns of Blood & Thunder is as follows:

'Chaos Calling'

'Death Dealer'

'Beneath The Eyes Of Mars'

'The Doom Of Aceldama'

'Age Of Sorrow'

'The Bringer of War'

'Descent Into Madness'

'Iron Hammer'

'The Mist In The Mourning'

'Blood And Thunder'

Beginning August 1, the band will team up with Atlanta’s ZOROASTER and Belgium’s SERPENTCULT for the “North America is DOOMED” summer tour. A full listing of upcoming live dates can be found Read more here.

In addition to Simon, The Gates Of Slumber features Jason McCash (bass) and “Iron” Bob Fouts (drums).