To Drink from the Night Itself — Mid-Paced D-Beat Anchor — Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates) Drum Lick | MetalForge
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Learn the To Drink from the Night Itself — Mid-Paced D-Beat Anchor drum lick by Adrian Erlandsson of At the Gates. From To Drink from the Night Itself (To Drink from the Night Itself (2018)). The title track of At the Gates' 2018 album To Drink from the Night Itself is a mid-paced, groove-dr...
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1. Adrian Erlandsson's Signature Licks — The title track of At the Gates' 2018 album To Drink from the Night Itself is a mid-paced, groove-driven showcase built around the same D-beat foundation that anchored "Slaughter of the Soul" more than two decades earlier — proof that Adrian Erlandsson's core rhythmic vocabulary translates just as effectively at a restrained tempo as it does at full blast-beat velocity. Recorded at Russ Russell's Parlour Recording Studios in Kettering, England — the first reunion-era At the Gates session tracked away from Studio Fredman — the song arrived under unusual circumstances: co-founding guitarist Anders Björler had just departed the band, and Jonas Stålhammar was recording his first material with the group. Through that lineup change, Erlandsson's drumming provided the steady anchor the song needed, using the same Tama Starclassic Bubinga kit and Sabian AAX/HHX cymbal setup documented on At War with Reality four years earlier, now filtered through Russell's tighter, more compressed production instincts rather than Jens Bogren's fuller mix. The track's structure moves through restrained, dynamically controlled verses into full-intensity choruses, with Erlandsson's D-beat pattern anchoring the melodic guitar interplay between Stålhammar and Martin Larsson throughout. Unlike the sustained blast-beat assault of "Blinded by Fear" or "Death and the Labyrinth," this track demonstrates a different skill: building dynamic contrast within a groove-based D-beat foundation, pulling back the kick and snare intensity in the verses so the chorus hits land with real impact rather than blending into a wall of undifferentiated intensity. The Bubinga snare, tuned tighter and more compressed under Russell's engineering than it was on the previous album, sits forward and aggressive in the mix without losing the body that distinguishes it from the band's thinner 1995 studio snare. For drummers, this song is the essential study in D-beat as a dynamic tool rather than a maximum-velocity weapon: the same foundational pattern that opens "Blinded by Fear" at 195 BPM here becomes a vehicle for verse-to-chorus dynamic build, requiring the restraint to hold back in quieter sections and the judgment to know exactly when to release that tension. Practice the core D-beat pattern in isolation at this tempo first, focusing on dynamic control between verse and chorus sections, before adding the transitions that carry the song's structural shape.2. Adrian Erlandsson Profile — Anchor the mid-paced groove on the same D-beat foundation used across Erlandsson's faster material, adapted for a restrained, dynamically controlled tempo Pull back kick and snare intensity through the verses so the chorus sections land with real dynamic impact Lock the D-beat pattern to the melodic guitar interplay between the two guitarists rather than playing it as a fixed, unchanging pulse Keep the tighter-tuned Bubinga snare sitting forward and aggressive in the mix without sacrificing the body a looser tuning would lose Use the twin 22" Bubinga kick drums for a controlled, weighted foundation rather than maximum-velocity double bass work
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