AT THE GATES The Nightmare Of Being | Weekly Heavy Metal Album Review

Released by Century Media Records on July 2nd, 2021

Quick Background

At the Gates, Swedish melodic Gothenburg-style death metal pioneers, were initially active from 1990 to 1996, reforming in 2007 for a tour between April and September 2008. In 2011, they reformed again and have since continued to perform. They released At War with Reality, their first album in 19 years, in late 2014. This album is one of the best come back metal albums in metal. It was also my top album of 2014. It is a slick and  "too well-produced". 'To Drink From the Night Itself' from 2018 was a response to that, it is dirty and gritty. It was also their first album written and recorded without lead guitarist/primary songwriter Anders Björler, who departed in 2017. He has since been replaced by Stålhammar.

The Nightmare Of Being

The Nightmare Of Being opens with a very proggy feel, "Spectre of Extinction" takes 1:30 to become a trademark At the Gates song in the veins of their comeback album At War With Reality. The Nightmare Of Being which features 10 songs in 45 minutes was mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren, who has previously worked on the At War With Reality. And while at first listen without too much attention you may think it's pretty much the same as that album, upon more spinning sessions you realize the incorporation of progressive elements. But because they still sound a lot like themselves, it feels natural. Still I think the closest album to it is the come back album. 

The most obvious example of the proggy elements is "Garden of Cyrus" which features a slow build up and a saxophone, yes you heard me right, At The Gates going very Pink Floyd or King Crimson. The song also takes 3 minutes with instrumental and spoken words before Tomas Lindberg delivers his well-known vocals. For that reason it brings back that At The Gates sound. Another curved ball follows with "Touched by the White Hands of Death" and its one-minute long orchestral minute straight out a film score. But don't get fooled by the intro, the following 3 minutes are just pure At The Gates energy and sound. "The Fall into Time" the longest song on the album again relies on a long epic intro before turning into a mid tempo melo death song. But in this case the song also features a long proggy mid instrumental section that reminds me of modern prog bands such as Intronaut.  

Other songs are pure classic At The Gates, such as "The Paradox" and "Cult of Salvation". 

 

The Picky Guy

One song that worries me is "Cosmic Pessimism", it reminds me a lot of the period when In Flames was transitioning from melo death masters into alt rock wannabes. I certainly hope I am very wrong about this. 

Wrap Up Opinion 

While all the other songs are good and the album flows well, The Nightmare Of Being never really brought a wow factor in me. So I don't think I will be going back to this album often. But I do think any of those songs will fit well their set-list and among their best songs and classics it will sit very well. It makes hard to rate an album in those conditions, but still I am giving it 80/100, a good album. Most of the fans will find interesting and fun songs here. But I don't think it will really impress us. 

SCORE: 80/100

Genre: Death Metal

Released by Century Media Records on July 2nd, 2021

Rating System

99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad

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