At the Gates - The Ghost of a Future Dead

[Thenop]

At the Gates – The Ghost of A Future Dead

Everything starts somewhere, also in music. We had Black Sabbath starting Heavy Metal, Metallica starting Thrash Metal (or at least being the first putting it out there) and when it comes to the specific Swedish 'Goteborg Sound' in Death Metal, At the Gates were front runners.
It is Death Metal, so that means heavy guitars, intense vocals – often sounding like your dog has a strep infection – but there is melody in this specific niche of metal. In fact, without this specific band it would be thinkable Metalcore would have not existed in its current form. The combination of super intense metal, with melodic breakdowns (which Metalcore in essence is) was more than inspired by the classic if all Goteborg Sound albums:

At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul. This album cemented the bands' name and defined the genre while making it an essential album in the style.

At the heart of that album there was a vocalist with a haunting growl, a hysterical howl that came from deep within: Tomas Lindberg – Tompa as he was known by. His specific niche was that you can actually decipher what he is singing as oppose to your average cookie cutter growler.
An instigator of the scene with countless music projects to his name (I looked all of the up):
At the Gates – Nightrage - The Crown - Lock Up – Skitsystem – Grotesque -Disfear - The Great Deceiver - Liers in Wait - Ben-Hur – Conquest – Hide – Infestation - Sign of Cain - Snot Rocket - The Lurking Fear.
Prolific much?

All of the above lead to somewhere: an unfortunate demise. Tompa died last year November of the complications he suffered after several cancer treatments. He suffered from adenoid cystic carcinoma which is important in this context.

Before he died he managed to put down several demos for the new At the Gates album, and finished 3 of the last songs the day prior to his final surgery where they removed part of the roof of his mouth – he would never be able to sing again. It was a last attempt to save his life.

That was a long intro to what is Tompa's swansong. Of course there are more members in this band, most notably the Bjorler twins (one of which left, came back, left and came back again).
I was never intimately familiar with the bands complete output but of course knew Slaughter of the Soul (1995) being the groundbreaking album it is. They broke up soon after that, stayed dormant for nearly 20 years and reunited little over 10 years ago for more new music. As things go, new albums came and went, and on Tompa's behest they experimented somewhat, albums became a bit more eclectic and less 'thrashy'. But with Bjorlon returning to the fold recently the thrashiness, melody and more straightforward style emerged once again.

Now, I was not sure what to expect from this but when the first video from the album popped up in my YouTube timeline I clicked it and was pleasantly surprised. The Fever Mask is not only a great opener to the album with a directness you seldom hear, the accompanying clip, which is a compilation of Tompa's entire life in pictures, is somewhat of an emotional ride. From a young, sweet teenage, skinny boy to the man he became, light beard, always with a cap on his head, it is a lovely ode to a man loved in the scene by everyone.

So naturally when the album dropped the 24th of April I wanted to hear what this was all about. Did they manage to finish his vision? Heavy but melodic, straightforward, and proper send off?
Well, yes, they did.
Having read some interviews I know the initial album title was The Dissonant Void but it was changed – by Tompa – to the current (and bone chilling knowing now what we all know): The Ghost of a Future Dead

First off: the sound is fantastic, yes compressed but to an extent everything is clearly audible. With Tompa's voice floating over it all, weaving through it all and pushing the songs forward. The already mentioned The Fever Mask is a highlight, but the absolute winner here is Tomb of Heaven. In just 3:53 the band rips through it at breakneck speed, breaking it down for the chorus. Everything sounds like it should be there.
Speaking of that chorus, I think this is one of the very best metal choruses I have ever heard. It is somewhat anthemic but not too much and it is intense:

The forbidden silence
Disintegrating black
Through the ashes and the dust of our graves
The tomb of heaven, the tomb of heaven ablaze

Not something to look forward to, yet he is singing it with such conviction it's almost like he wants to say: here I am, you want to take me? Take me! If I go down, everyone will know what it is like.

I fully realize this is not everyone's cup of tea, in fact many of you won't be able to stand even the first couple of bars, or the vocals when they kick in. But if you want to 'uncomfort' yourself, just for once, with something that is so intense it will literally blow you away, listen to this song:

And if you have anything left after that watch the video to the Fever Mask:

[pdw1]

I am a big fan of the Gotenborg sound/Melodic Death Metal. Nice review and I must get hold of this.

[The Picnic Wasp]

It's strange. I enjoy very brief exposure to this genre. It's a kind of morbid fascination which will probably never result in a purchase.

 I enjoyed your review, learning of the sad darkness behind this recording but the furthest I generally and probably will ever travel in this direction is the more manic, short passages in Porcupine Tree type music.

A few minutes of this level of intensity is fine and it has its place, but I suffer from fatigue fairly quickly.