The7thGatekeeper — Time Alone Cannot Heal
Some songs become part of our lives before we even know why they’re significant. They remain with you through the ebb and flow of life, acquire new resonance as we age and they become part of the fabric of our experience. Eventually they become so familiar they feel like our own. With Time Alone Cannot Heal The7thGatekeeper takes four songs and reworks them in a very personal, pared back way, with an emphasis on authenticity, atmosphere and the emotional content of the performance. Rather than trying to re-create the original recordings, this is an exploration of what happens when you take those songs and slow them down, rework them and let them speak from the artist’s own musical point of view. The four tracks are “Nose on the Grindstone”, “Take Me Away”, “Toxicity” (by System of a Down) and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” (by Green Day). These are the songs that form the broad musical palette of The7thGatekeeper whose influences range from Dolly Parton and Jason Isbell through to Muse and Slipknot. The country songwriting, the alternative rock and the heavier stuff may seem very different, but they all have the ability to express difficult emotions without the need for a veneer of polish. That’s the spirit of this release. The7thGatekeeper has been playing and singing these songs for decades and they’ve become part of a long standing musical practice rather than just a set of tracks selected for a recording. The project came about as a result of a conversation with friend and very highly regarded producer Romesh Dodangoda who suggested doing a session at Longwave Studios in Cardiff. It was also a chance for the artist to further develop the working relationship with Dodangoda and to get to know the studio team a little better in the lead up to a third album which is due in 2027. It’s not just a session in the lead up to that though. This is an artist continuing to explore what these songs can reveal when you take them in a different direction. “The power of a song isn’t necessarily in how loud you play it, it’s in how honestly you let it speak” is the guiding principle of this EP. The aim is not to outdo the original artists but to discover something personal in the songs themselves.
One of the most fascinating things about *Time Alone Cannot Heal* is the way The7thGatekeeper treats the act of reinterpretation as a process of discovery. Playing around with different keys and time signatures led to the early 2025 release of *No One Was Saved*, an EP which featured variations on a number of well known songs including “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “Eleanor Rigby”. That EP continues the exploration, with “Toxicity” and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” being the two tracks that stand out as particularly significant. Taking on “Toxicity” (the System of a Down song) is a very different proposition from reinterpreting a more familiar acoustic or country song. The original is so strongly associated with the alternative metal genre that the challenge of reworking it in a more raw, personal way is to find a different emotional dimension. For The7thGatekeeper that is precisely what happens with that track and it’s the one track that he feels has really come to life in the reworking. The other one is “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” (the Green Day song) which is also very significant. The approach taken there was to strip the arrangement right back to fingerpicking and play it very slowly. That really brings out the reflective quality of the song and gives it space to breathe. The personal significance of that version is captured in a very poignant detail from the artist himself: his wife said she would be happy to have the final track played at her funeral and that she meant it as a positive. For The7thGatekeeper, whose wife’s opinion is absolutely paramount, that is the ultimate validation of the recording. It’s a recording which has connected with someone who knows him very well. That’s probably more important to him than any attempt to outdo the original. The recording process was very much about preserving that sense of intimacy. The brief to Dodangoda was to make the songs sound raw and genuine, as if you were sitting at home with The7thGatekeeper whilst he was practising. Longwave’s team captured the sound of the room with a Reverbophone and used a dual mic vocal setup with a Coles mic (inspired by the artist’s observation of Jason Isbell using one). That wasn’t about adding any kind of gloss at all; it was about creating a recording that felt immediate and authentic whilst still benefiting from the skill of the studio.
Recorded at Longwave Studios in Cardiff, Time Alone Cannot Heal is very much a product of trust and collaboration in the realisation of a quiet musical idea. Romesh Dodangoda (friend and mentor as per The7thGatekeeper) was the guiding force during the session with Tom Williams and Ziggy Powell providing a very much supportive and enjoyable environment. The focus was on playing and performing and the technical skill of the studio was able to take the brief and deliver a finished piece. It’s that balance between a very relaxed atmosphere and a very considered approach to the recording that is at the heart of the EP. The performances are intended to be in the room with you, but the way they are captured and the way the vocals are recorded is also a very deliberate choice. The four song selection is also a reflection of an artist who is still working out what he wants to say rather than one who has a fixed identity. The7thGatekeeper speak of a continuing desire to share ideas and songs as they develop their own original material and of course the uncertainty as to what the message might be and whether or not an audience is waiting to hear it. There’s something very compelling about that. It’s about the process of making music being more important than any certainty or image. It’s about each release being another step in the process of finding the voice behind the songs. The cover EP is a way of keeping that process going as you prepare for the next step with a third album due in 2027 and no performance plans at the moment. The title Time Alone Cannot Heal is a statement that invites you to think about memory, change and the fact that simply waiting for difficult feelings to pass is not going to do it. The supplied information doesn’t go into any detail about the exact meaning of the title, it just fits very naturally with a project that is about going back to songs that have stayed with you for years and finding new ways to say them. Ultimately it’s not an album that is about reinvention or about any particular technical achievement. Its appeal is in the humility, the curiosity and the sheer desire to make each performance as personal as possible. By bringing the country roots of storytelling into conversation with the alternative rock and heavier sounds the artist is able to create a four track snapshot of an artist who is still very much in the process of learning through the act of playing. You don’t need to have all the answers to make something that works. Sometimes the most honest thing you can do as an artist is to keep searching, keep playing and keep sharing the songs that won’t let go.
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