Support: 200 Stab Wounds, Enforced

 

The new wave of American death metal needs a breakout album, and Dark Superstition is it. Gatecreeper’s third full-length sees the Arizona death metal specialists—vocalist Chase H. Mason, guitarists Eric Wagner and Israel Garza, drummer Metal Matt Arrebollo and bassist Alex Brown—carving out their own path. The band’s first album for Nuclear Blast is more concise, melodic, and memorable than anything they’ve done in the past. “We refined the song structures,” Mason says. “We’re getting better at what we do.”