If you dream of denim, leather and Dungeons & Dragons, you’ve been dreaming of East of Sun, the new album from Canadian heavy metal torchbearers Gatekeeper.

Founding guitarist Jeff Black put it best when he said, “East of Sun is pure heavy metal with a sword and sorcery flourish. We wear our influences on our sleeves, but we don’t want to be a pale imitation of them. We try to capture the spirit of what we love without copying anyone’s’ notes. This album has our fastest song and it’s got our biggest, most epic slow-burner and many songs in between. It has melodic electric guitar playing coupled with fierce riffs, thunderous rhythms, mystical acoustic passages and, of course, a unique and varied performance from our singer, Jean-Pierre Abbaud.”

Abboud’s vocals are the highlight of East of Sun, narrating tales of kings, battles and treasure over classic-sounding instrumentation by the rest of the band.

“We at Gatekeeper are extremely pleased to present our first full-length album,” Blackwell adds. “In 2009, this band was nothing but a logo and a Myspace page with a handful of riff ideas. East Of Sun represents what we’ve been up to for the past several years since relocating to Vancouver, BC. Some of our previous fans may recognize a few of the tunes and we hope you enjoy the adjustments we’ve made to them. For those who are new to Gatekeeper, welcome.

“East Of Sun is not a concept album about any one thing. It is the simply the album we knew we had to make at this point in our careers and it’s an honor to release it under the banner of Cruz Del Sur Music. If anything, it’s a journey through the powers of myth, magic and heavy metal.”