Sur les sentiers des ténèbres,
Une croix enflammée dans le ciel,
Brime la lueur de l’Eden,
Et exalte la douleur des mortels.
In the brittle hush before dawn, Montreal’s The City Gates step once more into the theatre of the human condition. La douleur (des mortels) arrives like a flare against the firmament: brief, beautiful, burning with purpose. The band’s fusion of post-punk, shoegaze, and darkwave traditions becomes less a genre exercise and more an invocation of that ancient ache: to exist, to feel, to endure.
La douleur (des mortels) is the band’s second French-language track, a deliberate artistic choice that highlights the emotional and intimate core of the piece. The poetic, symbolic lyrics are delivered through a deep baritone voice, blending dramatic intensity with mystical introspection. The production is rich in atmosphere, featuring thunderous bass, powerful drums, sharp guitars, and hazy reverb.
“La douleur (des mortels) is a timeless theme,” they explain, “human, philosophical, even mythological.” This sense of myth carries through every moment. The guitars hum like distant engines of fate; percussion rolls with the inevitability of ritual. Yet, amid its atmosphere, there lies precision; an architecture of sound that grants weight to each emotion. The lyrics read as both confession and scripture, “a silent cry against impermanence.” One can feel the pulse of Romanticism in the band’s approach, a yearning that reaches back toward the sublime, even as it trembles at its edge. The song echoes influences such as The Sisters of Mercy, Twin Tribes, She Past Away, Killing Joke, Pink Turns Blue, and names from the French coldwave scene: Babel 17, Trisomie 21 (TCG shared the stage with both of them as well), Asylum Party, and Little Nemo.
The chorus distills the song’s cosmology into four potent images. The “paths of darkness” signify life’s uncertainty; “the shadowy path of existence,” as the band describes it. A flaming cross in the sky marks the wounds of experience, an emblem of suffering too bright to stare at. The flickering light of Eden denied recalls innocence scorched away by knowledge. And then, at its heart, Il exalte la douleur des mortels, lifts tragedy to something like grace.
Behind the imagery, a more terrestrial fear unfolds: the erosion of time, the frailty of flesh, the anxiety of a world increasingly estranged from meaning. But even within such gravity, the music carries a strange, transcendent beauty, an echo of humanity refusing to vanish into abstraction.
Their reflections echo the song’s central idea: that art can transform pain into beauty. “We are people who love life deeply,” they admit, “but through our music, we confront our fears, obsessions, and vulnerabilities. It’s a way to transcend them. To turn them into something beautiful.” In that spirit, La douleur (des mortels) glows between anguish and awe — a requiem and a renewal, a reminder that beauty remains, even as the light recedes.
Listen to La douleur (des mortels) below and order the single here.
Recorded at the band’s own Velouria Studios in Montreal and shaped by William Faith at 13 Studio in Chicago, the track bears the refinement of artisans who have lived within this sound for decades. “We love the DIY approach in our creative process,” the band says. “But this time, we wanted to explore new dimensions. William, already a fan of our music, immediately understood our sonic world – its gravity, melody, and intensity. Working with him was fluid and natural. The result is exactly what we hoped for.”
The band has toured across Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada. They’ve appeared at major festivals including Dark Spring Berlin, Return to the Batcave, Dark Spring Boston, Kalamashoegazer, Canadian Music Week, and Focus Wales Festival, and shared stages with The Chameleons, A Place to Bury Strangers, Actors, Selofan, Traitrs, Solar Fake, Nothing, and Vision Video.
The City Gates’ next show takes place tonight, October 10, at L’Escogriffe (Montreal), with The Mirrors ✢ Nümonia. AEuropean tour scheduled for late May/early June 2026
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