At The Gates - Malattia terminale dell’anima

We are blind to the world within us

Waiting to be born

At The Gates are one of the founding bands, alongside Dark Tranquillity, Ceremonial Oath and later In Flames, of the Gothenburg scene, one of the most dynamic and popular within metal. The band was officially formed in 1991, but its members had already been active since the late '80s. Their reference point is death metal, a genre born in the United States a few years earlier as an extremization of thrash metal toward darker, more violent and claustrophobic sounds. Death metal then quickly spread around the world, but especially in Sweden, where in the underground scene numerous young musicians picked up an instrument to offer their own interpretation of it between the late '80s and early '90s.

At The Gates can be considered among the most significant and influential death metal acts, not only because of the quality of the albums they released, but above all for two specific merits:

– In the period mentioned above, in terms of themes and imagery, death metal was for many, in most cases, little more than a horror stereotype with no particular intent beyond shocking the audience through depictions of mutilation, necrophilia and various forms of decomposition. Along with a handful of other names (Death among them, but not only), At The Gates were among the first and most influential bands to help free the genre from its thematic origins, closer to gore or slasher films and comics, making it deep and intellectual instead. Specifically, At The Gates' lyrics are marked by a strong existentialism, a sense of social unease and alienation that stem partly from a certain lyrical sensibility typical of Scandinavian metal, and partly from a direct influence of hardcore punk and crust punk, channeled through singer Tomas "Tompa" Lindberg, who was - and still is - actively involved with many bands in that scene. Lindberg brought the full spirit of hardcore punk into At The Gates' lyrics, filtering it through the lens of this new context, adding his own harrowing screaming on top.

– Also at the start of the '90s, stylistically the main trends in death metal pointed toward an extremization of both sound and technique. This gave rise to several works of real value, but on the other hand, those who tried to move in the opposite direction (that is, toward something more immediate and impactful) rarely had much to say, most often resulting in a thrash/death sound that was too derivative and faded. At the Gates, however, by developing their style album after album, found the balance between the violence and darkness typical of the genre and the pursuit of a more direct, melodic sound, capable of being both terrifying and gripping at once. Within a few years, their evolution effectively led them to found melodic death metal, alongside a handful of other bands (chief among them their fellow countrymen Dark Tranquillity or, from England, Carcass), and in doing so, At The Gates kept a sound identity all their own, desperate and harrowing.

The Swedes quickly became a point of reference. For better or worse, countless bands would draw heavily from their records - particularly from Slaughter Of The Soul, released in 1995, which would prove seminal, often even in areas seemingly far removed from its original context.

But let's take things in order, starting from the beginning.

The roots of At The Gates can be traced back to another band, Grotesque, which featured Tomas Lindberg on vocals and, in its final days, also Alf Svensson (pictured) on guitar. We're now in the second half of the '80s.

Grotesque released the demo Ripped From The Cross in 1988, followed by The Black Gate Is Closed in 1989 and the EP Incantation in 1990. All of their output would later be collected in the 1996 anthology In the Embrace Of Evil. In their case, it's a raw, rotten death metal of the kind that was raging through the Swedish underground at the time, tinged with thrash and black metal, not unlike many other productions of the era and still quite immature. The band, however, wasn't particularly cohesive and broke up quickly: its members went their separate ways. Lindberg and Svensson teamed up with two of Lindberg's school friends, twin brothers Anders and Jonas Björler (guitar and bass respectively), while Adrian Erlandsson was recruited on drums. A spark ignited among the five of them: for the first time, they truly felt at ease, eager to express what they had to say musically, each working alongside bandmates genuinely willing to support one another.

At The Gates' first release was the EP Gardens Of Grief in 1991, again in the vein of what is now considered old-school death metal, in the style of Grotesque. Compositionally, though, it's far more mature and already proves to be a remarkable work - dark, extremely heavy and sulfurous - even more so considering the band members had just turned 18. Among the main stylistic reference points one can cite, from the United States, Morbid Angel and, from Sweden, Entombed. But within the underground scene, death metal had already spread widely across the world, in a web of mutual influences between different local scenes.

The major metal label Peaceville Records is impressed by these young Swedes and signs the band, who thus in 1992 have total creative freedom to release The Red In The Sky Is Ours, which officially kicks off the Gothenburg metal scene in front of the whole world. Dark Tranquillity and Ceremonial Oath, the other "fathers" of the scene, will also reach the milestone of a full-length the following year. These are just the most celebrated names: dozens upon dozens of young musicians, often literally next-door neighbours, during these years take the bus from the Swedish city every morning to gather in specific neighbourhoods and venues. By coming together, they can share their passion, play together, discuss their favourite albums (Floridian or Swedish death-metal, American or German thrash-metal, Mercyful Fate or Iron Maiden and sometimes even non-metal bands), swap daily ideas and opinions, sometimes even members of the bands themselves, as if in one big family or metal collective. At The Gates, however, keep a relatively stable line-up from the very start.

From the title alone, The Red In The Sky Is Ours is a manifesto of the Swedes' sonic and thematic intent: a dark work, steeped in suffering and despair, with an oppressive sense of powerlessness pervading the atmosphere. Lindberg's lyrics carry a religious, or rather anti-religious, connotation that had already partly become typical of several death-metal bands in the genre's early days, used for "laddish" purposes (as a form of adolescent rebellion, let's say) or simply to shock the listener and draw an audience; but At the Gates give it a more existential, genuine reading, set within a context of generational unease typical of Scandinavia (think, for instance, of the black-metal phenomenon as well). The penetrating, all-consuming red of the title and artwork is an allegory of blood spilled across the sky, i.e. of personal marginalisation from a (Christianised) society that judges and rejects. This underlying inner, psychological and social tension will be a constant in the band's work, at least in its early years.

The production is low quality, very raw and rotten. The opening title track, "Kingdom Gone" and "City Of Screaming Statues" are among the band's finest moments ever. The guitars are tuned down five semitones, i.e. to B, giving the sound a much darker edge than usual. There's also the influence of black-metal in these atmospheres and in the more buzzing riffs, via Lindberg, who generally appreciates the minimalist extremism of the genre (itself still young) and hangs around members of up-and-coming bands from neighbouring Norway such as Darkthrone and Mayhem. Above all, he's particularly fond of Bathory. 

Compositionally, the album is also far more elaborate than the previous EP, with numerous dissonant guitar harmonisations, tempo changes that, with due proportion, edge close to technical death and progressive metal (Lindberg cites Atheist among the main early influences), interwoven buzzing riffs and occasional violin flourishes. Together, these elements give the tracks a sense of sonic progression and complexity (partly paving the way for Swedish progressive-death-metal acts like Edge Of Sanity and Opeth). The peak in this sense is reached on tracks like "Night Comes, Blood Back" and "Neverwhere", where the level of harmonisation and interplay between the guitars becomes refined enough to foreshadow the further progression that would come on the second album.

These compositional ideas are put forward mainly by Svensson, and are then developed by Anders Björler, who is fascinated by them, finding them demanding and stimulating (though he would later backtrack, claiming the riffs were actually too showy). The songwriting above all heightens the oppressive atmosphere, since everything sounds intricate, chaotic, unbridled fury; the only exception is the short instrumental "The Scar", a melancholy interplay of clean electric guitar arpeggios.

The Red In The Sky Is Ours is a desperate outpouring of anger, resentment and frustration toward a society that refuses to listen.

Years passing swifter than you ever thought

Today will soon be behind you

And the future remains out of reach

A little under a year later, in 1993, With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness is released. This time the atmospheres are icy and gloomy, the compositions more direct and dark, and the running time of individual tracks shrinks slightly. In some ways it's also the band's most complex and "abstruse" work in terms of writing. The arrangements remain scorching but also sound more mature, focusing on dissonant melodies and tight rhythms, driven by Erlandsson's violent drumming. Svensson's personal compositional method is also pushed to its extreme consequences: he conceives the guitar parts by first recording a riff, then recording it again backwards, and finally extracting from the simultaneous playback of the two different melodies the fragments he finds most congenial. Precisely for this reason, Svensson and Björler end up occupying equal roles within the songs' architecture, setting themselves apart from most other dual-guitar metal bands, where one could always clearly tell a lead guitar from a rhythm guitar. On the vast majority of the album's tracks, their roles intersect, and neither of the two actually carries a melody on his own: it only emerges from the interaction and interweaving of the two instruments' voices, which at times play independent parts, at other times complete each other's phrases, in a skewed, chaotic take on linear counterpoint.

What's more, several tracks don't even have a recognisable verse/chorus structure, making the album's final result even more unsettling: "The Break Of Autumn" (which Leif Edling of Candlemass presciently described at the time as "the future of Swedish metal") is made up of several fragmented sections that alternate and repeat without following any predictable pattern, "Primal Breath" has a symmetrical arc-like structure, and several other tracks ("Non-Divine", "Stardrowned", "The Architects", "Blood Of The Sunsets") freely combine these two approaches. Such a sophisticated level of songwriting and harmonic arrangement had not been reached even on the first record, except in a few tracks. This new depth and maturity is also reflected in Lindberg's lyrics, which were already extremely polished compared to the death-metal landscape of the time on the previous album: the existential reflection on the rejection of Christianity here takes on a further lyrical quality, reaching its peak in "The Break Of Autumn" and above all in "Primal Breath" (the latter directly based on a Sioux poem).

Acoustic interludes are few but masterfully crafted: the mournful introduction to "Raped By The Light Of Christ" (very similar to "A Fine Day to Die" by Bathory, probably a tribute given Lindberg's aforementioned passion for the Norwegian black-metal scene), and the very brief moment of calm between two storms in "The Break Of Autumn". The closing track "Through The Red" also contains "The Nightmare Continues", a chaotic Discharge cover, and reveals a side of the Swedes' music that carries a strongly hardcore and crust-punk character, emphasising their wildest, most extreme side.

After the release of this album, Alf Svensson, incidentally the oldest member of the band (6 years older than the others), decides to leave At The Gates to focus on his career as a tattoo artist and illustrator, and to start his own personal symphonic-black-metal project, Oxiplegatz. Martin Larsson is recruited in his place.

Up to this point, meanwhile, a distinct Swedish school of death-metal based in Stockholm had also made a name for itself (Entombed, Dismember, Unleashed, and early Tiamat among the main names), one of whose hallmarks was heavy use of the pedal and an extremely down-tuned guitar sound to achieve a distinctive, instantly recognisable "chainsaw" tone. At The Gates, the standard-bearers of the Gothenburg scene, set themselves apart instead by favouring open middle strings as well as tremolo-picking combined with rapid note or sequence changes. The Stockholm scene and the Gothenburg scene, not limited to death-metal alone, would come to define Sweden's 1990s.

By 1993, part of the death-metal scene is already evolving into melodic-death-metal. In Gothenburg, Dark Tranquillity release "Skydancer", which in some ways is close to At the Gates' debut album, but with more melancholy atmospheres, more technical and chaotic guitars, and a greater role given to acoustic elements; Ceremonial Oath, meanwhile, release "The Book of Truth", with pronounced heavy-metal and thrash-metal contaminations. Out in the provinces, Eucharist make their mark with "A Velvet Creation", which clearly echoes early At the Gates, while in Uppsala the now-forgotten Sarcasm blend that sound with black-metal on the demo "A Touch of the Burning Red Sunset"; though the latter are destined not to last. The scene is bubbling and starting to emerge into public view. Gothenburg is also influenced by the thrash-metal movement that had sprung up a few years earlier in Germany, with bands like Destruction or Kreator ("Coma of Souls" is particularly influential), and At the Gates are not immune to it.

But several important contributions will also come from outside Sweden: from neighbouring Finland, Sentenced release "North From Here", while from England, Carcass bring forth the seminal "Heartwork". It's above all the latter that is often regarded by critics and fans alike as the watershed moment for melodic death, but its approach and riffing differ from those of At the Gates, who chart their own separate course. They're like two parallel paths that, starting from different origins, arrive at the same destination.

Can you feel the pain I feel?

I’ve lost all sense of what is real

I’m lost, in a world I detest

Can you feel the pain I feel?

This wound I’ve got will never heal

I’m lost, in the serpents own nest

At the Gates' third album was born in a climate of ferment, evolution and enthusiasm that set it apart from their debut: in 1994 came the thrilling Terminal Spirit Disease, which, truth be told, is more of an EP given its length (barely 23 minutes). The album's base matrix is still death metal, but everything here is sharply melodic and more streamlined, following its own path on a different plane from what Carcass had done the year before. The arrangements are more polished and melodic, leaving aside much of the more convoluted interplay, and are also bolstered by an improved production that, compared to its predecessor, sounds less dirty and lends the atmospheres a more dramatic, "warmer", less icy quality. Credit for this production goes to Fredrik Nordström and his Fredman Studios, who would go on to produce numerous other Swedish albums and from this point on would effectively define the sound of melodic death metal. Despite the hammering, fiery rage, what dominates the album's atmosphere is sadness and a tragic, nihilistic emotionality that permeates their songs: "The Swarm", introduced by brief string notes immediately replaced by the fury of the electric guitar following the melodic line, soon turns into an impetuous, dark and aggressive outburst; the title track "Terminal Spirit Disease", anguished and impulsive, laden with affliction but also melancholy; the fascinating, atmospheric "And the World Returned…", an acoustic layering of as many as six guitars supported by some low background strings, among the most evocative instrumentals ever in Swedish metal, one that would influence many fellow countrymen (and others) to attempt something similar; "Forever Blind", once again suffering screamed at the top of one's lungs over angry, granite-hard riffs that nonetheless retain a certain relative catchiness; "Fevered Circle", a relatively slow track, the slowest At the Gates ever recorded, dark and aching; "The Beautiful Wound", a triumph of pain, torment and nihilism. A beautiful, significant record that explores the tragedy of existence, death, and the relationship between man and society, with the sole flaw of being... too short. Later editions added a few negligible live recordings.

In 1994 in Gothenburg, In Flames also made their debut, born from an offshoot of Ceremonial Oath, with an initially rawer and rougher style. Dark Tranquillity released the EP "Of Chaos and Eternal Light", which highlighted their stylistic progression, by now moving away from the typical At the Gates sound. The scene was now ready for international consecration, and melodic death metal was definitively underway. Elsewhere in the country, bands like Edge of Sanity or Desultory offered their own take on a death metal that was also melodic, but without Gothenburg's most distinctive traits; while Hypocrisy, at this point, were still tied to traditional Stockholm death metal, though they would soon evolve in a more melodic, atmospheric direction. Outside Sweden, meanwhile, the genre's development was furthered by bands such as Finland's Amorphis (with "Tales From the Thousand Lakes") or Mexico's Cenotaph ("Riding Our Black Oceans"), who started from roots shared with At the Gates and sought to develop their own paths.

Born of the demon sky

Twisting reality

Sweet nauseating pain

Is death the only release?

It's difficult to describe the influence an album has had without resorting to hyperbole and excessive superlatives. But describing Slaughter of the Soul (1995) as the most metabolized metal album ever, the one most taken as a model — if not outright copied — in Sweden, wouldn't stray too far from the truth. Once again produced by Fredrik Nordström, who shapes its thick, searing sound, the album represents the final crystallization of melodic death metal's trajectory, its institutionalization as a well-defined subgenre (for some critics, even a genre entirely separate from its "parent" death metal), as well as its popularization among the wider metal audience. There isn't a band wanting to play any derivation of melodeath that doesn't owe it some debt. Ironically, in Lindberg and co.'s original intentions, the work was meant to be a "Slayer tribute", and indeed there's a lot of Slayer in the riffing, with thrash metal in fact forming a key part of the songs' backbone between verses and bridges. The song structures are linear, with clearly marked verses and choruses that are always gripping, yet never cloying or lacking in aggression. The guitars are now sharper, more uniform, simplified and extremely fast, far from the dissonant harmonizations of their early days. The drums oscillate between death metal conventions and a use of blastbeats explicitly inspired as much by Slayer as by hardcore punk, following an approach that would be imitated by countless bands and that, in this instance, also affects the songs' length. Often short, pared down to the essentials, burning through the listen quickly and with rage.

The opening "Blinded by Fear", the album and band's manifesto, lasts under 3 minutes if you exclude its brief intro, and the same goes for many other tracks, like the shattering, screamed "Nausea" or the furious, unsettling "Need". But these aren't short songs: to paraphrase the Ramones, it's At the Gates playing them fast, and here too one can spot the significant legacy of "Reign in Blood". Lindberg's harrowing screams are more desperate and furious than ever, and they too have much in common with hardcore. Indeed, one of melodic death metal's defining traits from here on would also be that of not being pure death metal (sometimes not being death metal at all), but rather being open to contamination and stylistic variation. From this point of view, though, At the Gates are actually among the more "conservative" bands, compared to many fellow countrymen and followers who would often diverge wildly in style. In doing so, their main stylistic achievement becomes that of starting again from essential elements and developing them into their own voice, looking backward in order to reinvigorate and strengthen them.

Lyrically, Lindberg's words become even more direct and stripped-down, yet without betraying the tragic existentialism and sense of anguish and oppression that by now define them. "Cold" is perhaps the peak of pain and rage.

To rid the earth of the filth

To rid the earth of the lies

The will to rise above

Tearing my inside out

I feel my soul go cold

Only the dead are smiling

The oppressive, rotting atmospheres of their early days are now definitively replaced by a sharper production (funded by Earache, the label the band had since signed to), by ferocious, searing sounds, by clean and, at points, even simplistic arrangements that nonetheless remain surprisingly distinctive and personal. The five-semitone-down tuning gives the sound a deeply dark quality, yet the band manages to blend it with a certain melodic sense. There are two instrumentals: "Into the Dead Sky" is a brief acoustic interlude ballad, marked by underlying tension and more melodic releases; "The Flames of the End" is an apocalyptic closer driven by relentless drums, icy keyboards and bursts of distorted guitar that sound like sudden flares.

Slaughter of the Soul doesn't display the depth of atmosphere and arrangement found on the band's earlier records, nor (to compare it with its contemporaries) the intricate structures of "The Gallery", released just two weeks later by fellow countrymen Dark Tranquillity, or the catchiness of In Flames' "The Jester Race" (with which it forms the trio of the most seminal and influential albums ever for melodic death metal and its offshoots). And yet it manages to be enormously communicative and expressive, more so than any of its contemporaries. And of all of them, it would prove the most influential, inspiring virtually every melodic death metal band to follow, but also, by the end of the decade, America's melodic-metalcore phenomenon (which would plunder this album extensively), some Swedish hardcore acts, and to a certain extent several veteran thrash and related bands (some less so, like Machine Head or Nevermore, others more so, like Kreator themselves). Exactly like Slayer's "Reign in Blood" ten years earlier, Slaughter of the Soul is an immovable monument within extreme metal. Unfortunately, unlike that record, many of the Swedish band's followers would have far less to say, and in most cases would drown in mediocrity and excessive derivativeness, trying to sound like Slaughter of the Soul without even a fraction of its sonic expressiveness and songwriting grandeur. Metal labels, nominally independent but behaving exactly like any major, would sniff out a cash cow in this explosion of followers (if not outright photocopies and blatant rip-offs), signing countless bands with little to say, often one-or-two-album wonders. But every so often they would also unearth more interesting names with real potential, ones who managed not to come across as mere clone acts, or who, even while being one, proved sharper than many of their peers.

Open me, with your kiss of steel

End my pain – set me free

For we are enslaved, forever enslaved 

Between the late Nineties and the 2000s, the melodic death metal phenomenon — whether closer to its origins or more contaminated and multifaceted — would explode worldwide, with many young musicians picking up a guitar trying to emulate At the Gates or early In Flames, if not trying to sound exactly like them. Among the most successful bands to debut were Sacrilege, Soilwork, Darkane, Callenish Circle, The Black Dahlia Murder, Be'lakor, Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, Kalmah, Scar Symmetry — some pushing the sound to extremes, others making it more melodic or opening it up to more modern influences, in both cases not always with quality worthy of the masters, but occasionally hitting the mark. In Italy, Disarmonia Mundi and Dark Lunacy would establish themselves, with some interesting, personal releases that nonetheless remained niche. There would also be bands fronted by female vocalists, like Arch Enemy or The Agonist, who would enjoy a fair amount of appeal with audiences despite many underwhelming releases. Almost simultaneously, though in fact slightly later, melodic metalcore would also rise to prominence in the market, often openly drawing on melodeath too, and achieving far greater commercial success: Killswitch Engage, Caliban, Poison the Well, Shadows Fall, Unearth…

But throughout this whole period of exploding bands and clones, At the Gates would not be part of it: in 1996, almost out of nowhere, the band broke up. The Björler brothers left because they couldn't handle the pressure of the success achieved after their last album's release, and saw the contractual obligations with the record label and the growing tour schedule as too heavy a burden. They were young, still only 23, and outside the recording studio were, at heart, fragile and shy young men who, like many others, felt crushed by the music industry. The rest of the band decided there was no point carrying on without them, and each went their own way.

The Björler twins, together with drummer Erlandsson, founded Haunted in 1997, blending the At the Gates sound with injections of old-school thrash and the more modern groove-metal of bands like Pantera or Machine Head. The whole thing was approached as a divertissement, with less pressure and more freedom with timing, and it achieved decent success at home and in the UK.

Lindberg, meanwhile, spent these years collaborating with various metal, hardcore and grindcore outfits. In the metal field, his main endeavor was with the Swedish-Greek-French outfit Nightrage, who sound exactly like At the Gates but with a touch more heavy metal thrown in. Despite being "clones," the result is still above average. In the hardcore/crust realm he collaborated with fellow Gothenburgers Skitsystem. Since 1999 he's also been with The Great Deceiver, who repeatedly blend hardcore-punk, melodic death metal and even industrial. In the grindcore world, we find him with the English band Lock Up, churning out some worthwhile releases.

One thing worth noting is that there are numerous bands that mix various metal styles without actually being death metal, and that get improperly classified as melodic death simply because of a growled or screamed vocal, and because of riffs directly inspired by the Gothenburg template, all reshuffled together. Often oriented toward a wholly melodic style, with extensive use of keyboards and clean vocals, they bear witness to an evolution that began after Slaughter of the Soul; styles that took a certain riffing style from it but not its pulsing heart and attitude, ending up drifting away from the genre and creating something different. At times this has allowed for an easy exploration of new sounds and the expression of fresh ideas; at other times, unfortunately, it has resulted in the tired rehashing of clichés, losing the most thrilling, lived-in and visceral traits of At the Gates' music.

Among the other "fathers" of melodic death metal, transformations also occur, often radical ones, with their share of highs and lows. Dark Tranquillity prove to be the ones in the best shape, playing with crossovers between dark-wave and electronics to achieve a highly personal style, with good results confirmed by both critical and commercial success; In Flames, after having "absorbed" Ceremonial Oath (who disbanded at the end of 1995), by contrast abandon the genre altogether to head toward more mainstream shores, albeit in a very inconsistent way, drawing plenty of criticism. In England, Carcass instead veer toward death'n'roll, albeit with less inspiration than in the past, though without sinking into mediocrity like others. One can't help but wonder, amid all this, what would have become of At the Gates had they never split up... or if they got back together to play.

Surprisingly, the reunion came in 2007, initially just for live shows, with the stated intent (at least in interviews) of not recording anything in the studio at all. The same script was followed for a second reunion tour in 2010. But nostalgia won out, and the band, swept up in enthusiasm, went back into the studio, and in 2014 At War With Reality was finally released. Still very much steeped in nostalgia, the basic style remains almost unchanged, resulting in a melodic death metal that can by now be defined as "old school," explicitly harking back to the first half of the Nineties, albeit delivered with a more modern production, with fuller, crisper sounds that the ever-faithful Fredrik Nordström shapes to convey icy atmospheres. It's an intense, full-bodied, cutting record, with fast, steely guitars, but also somewhat formulaic and in some ways predictable. The tracks are short, though not all as short as on the previous album, mostly closer in length to those of "With Fear...", from which certain spine-chilling harmonic interplays are also reclaimed, over which the more direct and accessible riffing of the two following albums is built. Overall, though, a good comeback.

In 2018 At the Gates released To Drink From the Night Itself, the first album without longtime guitarist Anders Björler, who left the band in 2016 for personal reasons. Like its predecessor, the album draws its themes from philosophy and literature, in this case from "The Aesthetics of Resistance" by German writer Peter Weiss. The band's intent was to sonically convey the drama and anguish of a resistance doomed to fail. Compared to its predecessor, the atmospheres sound more fiery and melancholic, less icy. It can be said that, at least in part, these sonic intentions were achieved. Unfortunately, missing are the essence and spontaneity of the band's classic albums, with their visceral despair. This time the result is too formulaic, and the songwriting ends up flattened. The result isn't mediocre, though, and there are several incandescent tracks (worth mentioning especially the title track and "Labyrinth Of Tombs"). A professional record from people who have indeed mastered their craft, but the material isn't always impactful. Not enough to rise above average, unlike other comebacks from the past that were likewise formulaic but had more ideas to draw on. It's also true, however, that At the Gates don't need to prove anything beyond what they've already done: their Nineties discography alone is enough to place them in the pantheon of extreme metal.

In 2021 The Nightmare of Being was released. Its themes are inspired by "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race," a philosophical essay by horror writer Thomas Ligotti. The result is a tragic death-metal poem, rendered harrowing by Thomas Lindberg's delivery, yet accessible and immediate in its own way. There are no revolutions here: the style is given a fresh coat of paint thanks to greater atmospheric openness, more elaborate and refined arrangements, emotional ups and downs, and small touches of atypical instruments. These last are just trimmings, though: the substance lies in the melodic ideas behind the songs. At the Gates show themselves in full force, with their blend of rage, darkness and melody, as in the opening "Spectre of Extinction" (with an acoustic intro reminiscent of Rush's "A Farewell to Kings" and a solo entrusted to guest Andy LaRocque), in the frenetic single "The Paradox" (with faint acoustic counterpoints underpinning heart-pounding riffs), or in the darker title track. Then, though, "Garden of Cyrus" surprises with its Pink Floyd-like melodiousness in its atmospheres and solo, embellished by a well-judged saxophone reminiscent of Solefald's "In Harmonia Universali" and Ghost's "Miasma." The orchestrations and choral touches of "The Fall into Time," in their simplicity, slot in among the riffs with an effectiveness Therion have long since lost, before giving way to a rhythmic digression that quotes Rush's "Permanent Waves." "The Abstract Enthroned" is a well-crafted old-school track with small, unsettling strings toward the end, while "Cosmic Pessimism" is instead bluesy and catchy. Many of the fresh ideas are intriguing and interesting in their own right, managing to give the band a new look without betraying their style. Not every song stands out on its own, but taken within the flow of the album they gain cohesion and substance. "The Nightmare of Being" will surely spark discussion and divide listeners, but it grows with repeated listens, and credit must be given to the band for managing to renew themselves so spontaneously.

On September 16, 2025, Tomas Lindberg died after a battle with cancer, leaving an enormous void in the Swedish scene.

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