At The Gates Release “The Nightmare of Being”
Swedish melodic death metal mainstays At The Gates have just dropped their latest studio album, entitled The Nightmare of Being. Lead vocalist Tomas Lindberg crafted the record’s concept after an intense period of reading and reflection that led him to dive into the philosophy of pessimism. That gave bassist and primary songwriter Jonas Björler plenty to work with.
“I told Jonas I wanted this to be a really dark record,” Lindberg explains. “The last one was dark but maybe more aggressive. It was more about struggle and resistance. This one is deeper, darker, and more philosophical, so I told Jonas he could really go far with this one, with the ideas that we always had about putting the progressive stuff in there. Pretty early on he came out with the first sketches for Garden Of Cyrus which is the more King Crimson-like song on there. After that, we knew that we could do this and there was nothing holding us back from where we want to go. Of course, it’s not the most commercial album, in that sense, but none of the albums are, and they’re all different.”
Get a taste of the album and Bjorler’s playing in this video for “The Paradox”:
The Nightmare of Being is available now on CD, vinyl and as a digital download (iTunes and Amazon MP3).
The Nightmare of Being Track List:
- Spectre of Extinction
- The Paradox
- The Nightmare of Being
- Garden of Cyrus
- Touched by the White Hands of Death
- The Fall Into Time
- Cult of Salvation
- The Abstract Enthroned
- Cosmic Pessimism
- Eternal Winter of Reason
