Gates To Purgatory  by Running Wild

In their debut album titled Gates To Purgatory, Running Wild presents eight compositions that move between the classic heavy metal sound, power metal, while openly flirting with thrash metal. The album's release year is 1984, and things haven't been clarified yet, with the boundaries not being distinct between power/speed metal and thrash metal.

The lyrics of many songs stem from the theological studies of the band's guitarist Gerald "Preacher" Warnecke, who left the band to become a priest (!) after the album's release. Despite this fact, the songs of the record and the cover were enough to characterize Running Wild as followers of Satan.

Prisoner Of Our Time is – perhaps – the most well-known song of the album in which the band introduces itself. Gates To Purgatory is considered one of the most influential albums in shaping the German or even better the European heavy metal sound of the 1980s. It was recorded in October 1984.