Gate - The Monolake (1997)

The New Zealand noise group known as Gate is the guise of one man, Michael Morley, guitarist with the post-punk/noise rock group Dead C. Throughout the '90s he produced a string of trance-inducing drone rock albums on the Table of the Elements label that present simplistic songs inside clouds of feedback and static noise drone. If the opening track shocks with its blatant sampled use of the Rolling Stones you will soon have forgotten the jab of humor and be engulfed in a drone guitar texture that sustains through the entire album, culminating in a cover version of Faust's "Jennifer" that is almost unrecognizable. Similarities to his full-time group Dead C are apparent thanks to his voice and guitar sound, although the album resembles a somewhat less brutal incarnation of the group and works with massive walls of guitar noise that are close to Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine.