The Swedish heavy metal legends' seventh full-length effort,
Nightmare of Being sees
At the Gates continuing to tweak their Gothenburg-style death metal with wild abandon. A blistering chimera of discord and melody, the ten-song set builds on the promise of its predecessor, 2018's
To Drink from the Night Itself, delivering deft arrangements, surprising sonic detours, and lyrics steeped in existential dread. Softly fingerpicked classical guitar sets the table on the crushing opener "Spectre of Extinction," which pairs the band's signature guitarmonies and galloping blast beats with
Tomas Lindberg's choked but powerful death-metal howl. Largely bereft of the cavernous reverb that's become synonymous with the genre over the decades,
Nightmare of Being achieves its icy atmospherics through brute strength, which makes the occasional forays into jazz ("Garden of Cyrus"), symphonic black metal ("Touched by the White Hands of Death"), and Krautrock ("Cosmic Pessimism") all the more thrilling.
At the Gates have been at the fore of the Scandinavian death metal scene since the early '90s --
Terminal Spirit Disease and
Slaughter of the Soul are seminal works -- and the dark and inventive
Nightmare of Being should ensure that they remain there. ~ James Christopher Monger