It had been two years since Ring Van Möbius called it a day after unleashing three incredible studio albums through the Apollon label. We were still waiting for something fresh, something capable of carrying the flag forward from where the trio had left off. Well, something special has landed on Earth, ready to carry the torch where ELP, Atomic Rooster, Le Orme, and Quatermass left off.
That band is the Dutch-based trio Gates of Kiev. Active since 2022 and formed by childhood friends Tomas Mesman and Hessel Braat, the group blends psychedelic and progressive influences from the ’60s and into the ’70s. Their love of ELP’s music is immediately apparent, with the name Gates of Kiev borrowed from the iconic live album Pictures at an Exhibition, an influence that has clearly become part of the band’s DNA. Mesman and Braat are joined by bassist Eszl de Vois, whose love of jazz fits the trio’s structure like a stick of dynamite waiting to explode.
With White Willow’s Jacob Holm-Lupo handling the production and mixing duties, Gates of Kiev’s first full-length, self-titled debut feels like the breath of fresh air we have been waiting for. Following their 2024 debut EP, Tales of Aion, the album arrives through Ken Golden’s label The Laser’s Edge with an enormous amount of confidence and ambition.
It’s almost like watching a movie inside your head when you put on Gates of Kiev. Whether you’re listening on a laptop, portable CD player, Android device, iPod touch, or record player, the music creates vivid images that seem to materialise right before you. Gates of Kiev prepare the listener for parallel universes bursting through an open door, revealing their crown jewel and essentially saying, “Look, here it is. This is what we’ve been doing. This is what we’ve unleashed. Now let us know what you think”.
MontDoom’s illustrated artwork for the band’s debut bears some striking resemblance to Richard Corben’s illustrations from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine. It tells the story of an emperor on the brink of losing his kingdom, with a town preparing for war as its ruler attempts to maintain control with an iron fist. There’s almost a BioShock-like quality to the imagery, mixed with something straight out of the French animated classic The King and the Mockingbird.
But the artwork definitely tells a story.
From the moment the 12-minute epic ‘Hamlet Burns’ begins, we witness the destruction of a kingdom. Whispers among the dead emerge from the shadows while surreal synthesisers establish a nightmarish atmosphere. The listener walks among corpses, riots, and destruction left behind by the emperor, with the protagonist seemingly destined to put an end to it once and for all.
The strings immediately bring to mind the arrangements of the Third Ear Band’s Alchemy, adding another layer of decay to the unfolding nightmare. It feels as though the listener is being prepared for battle against insane townsfolk who have been spliced together and are ready to unleash whatever horrors are coming next. As Mesman and Braat lead the charge into this overture-esque, doomed powder keg, de Vois’ bass work provides the foundation for a battle that feels increasingly impossible to survive without something going terribly wrong.
When the Mellotron comes bursting through the floodgates, you can feel the tension being cut with a knife. Then Mesman enters on organ, challenging the arrangements of both Jon Lord and Keith Emerson, and suddenly all bets are off. Blaring guitar wails erupt around you as epic battles seem to unfold directly in front of your eyes. You can practically envision the band putting every ounce of hard work and dedication into the performance, with its sheer magnitude bringing to mind Italian prog rockers Murple and their conceptual masterpiece Io Sono Murple.
Once the acoustic and militant drums descend into the final confrontation, the song launches into a blaze of glory, knowing that this tragic figure is unlikely to survive after putting the emperor down. Imagine, if you will, the Space Oddity-era David Bowie writing for King Crimson during their Lizard era, with Pete Sinfield standing nearby as the wounded return home, forever changed by what they have witnessed. The trauma hangs over everything, with the Mellotron adding another layer to this vision of a homeland on the brink of destruction.
The trio really gets down to business with its stop-and-go, time-changing complexity. Drums, keyboards, and bass spit out massive bursts of musical gunfire before the synthesisers launch another attack, followed by organ and metallic crunches reminiscent of Rick Wakeman’s 1984 era firing on all cylinders.
The final minute sees Gates of Kiev tipping their hats to the climax of Pink Floyd’s ‘Astronomy Domine’ and the madcap genius of Syd Barrett before galloping off into the night. Powerful wah-wah and organ work bring the entire sequence crashing toward a standstill, leaving the listener ready to see what strange world will emerge next.
After the 12-minute epic, we plunge into the Mellotronic ocean of ‘Silhouette’, revealing another universe where guitars, synthesisers, and mid-to-fast-paced drums witness a battlefield transformed into a nightmarish landscape of epic wonder. The results are startling yet perfectly coherent, with late-’60s influences bringing to mind The Moody Blues’ maestro Mike Pinder.
As soon as Mesman lays down the law on the mighty Hammond organ, you can almost envision him raising his hand toward the sky and asking Thor to place the legendary Mjölnir in his grasp, allowing him to continue a journey through whatever strange corner of the Marvel universe might have awaited him before Thor himself was sold to the corporate falsetto mouse. Instead, Gates of Kiev create their own mythology.
‘Baltazar’ is where the band’s love of illustrated fantasy magazines and Heavy Metal really comes alive. The song creates a spooky vision of its central character, reminiscent of the strange war stories and supernatural imagery found within the magazine’s pages. Ghostly planes, zombies, and a protagonist slowly becoming one of the dead before attempting to head home all emerge through hypnotic Mellotronic flutes and ambient vibrations. Then the song suddenly shifts into a proto-prog, Italian-spaghetti-flavored adventure, leaving your musical taste buds demanding more.
We’re talking about The Nice, Le Orme, Deep Purple, and massive doses of the heavy Canterbury shuffles of unsung heroes Egg. Mesman enters full mad-scientist mode, cooking up strange experiments in his musical laboratory and taking his keyboards deep into the house of blues before unleashing an explosive roar. It’s as if he has created his own Frankenstein monster, and then decided to take it out for a walk-through town.
Closing out these parallel stories is ‘Drunkship of the Mice’. It feels like an epic tale being told around a campfire, the kind of horror story a counsellor might tell campers before scarring them for life. The song begins with Gates of Kiev’s nod to droning organ textures, followed by bass touches reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Pompeii version of ‘Careful with That Axe, Eugene’, a piano concerto that recalls ‘Crime of the Century’ during its midsection, native tribal-inspired galloping drum patterns, and the surreal Middle Eastern textures of Aphrodite’s Child.
And then, because why not?, you can almost picture Harley Quinn teaming up with the Joker to escape Arkham Asylum with Mr. J’s favourite sidekick leading the charge. Yep, you get the general idea.
As I sit here finishing this review while playing the DLC Mayhem Mode in LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight on my XBOX Series S, one thing is clear: Gates of Kiev are a band to watch. Their self-titled debut is more than a throwback to progressive rock’s golden era. It carries the spirit of ELP, Atomic Rooster, Le Orme, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, The Nice, and Canterbury prog while creating something that feels uniquely their own.
With Hammond organ explosions, Mellotron atmospheres, psychedelic textures, jazz influences, and cinematic storytelling, the trio has delivered an album that feels like stepping into another universe. If you’ve been waiting for a band capable of carrying the torch forward, Gates of Kiev may be exactly what you’ve been looking for. The journey has only just begun.
