At The Gates

The Nightmare Of Being

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Genre: Melodic Death Metal.
Released: 02/07/2021
Via Century Media

Album Review: At The Gate – The Nightmare Of Being

Swedish death metallers At The Gates are back with their new album ‘The Nightmare Of Being’. The melodic death metal outfit are one of the biggest bands of the genre and their name is well known around the community. At The Gates will be hoping that this will be the album that strikes gold once again, reaching the heights of their 1995 release ‘Slaughter Of The Soul’. I’m interested in checking out the notorious bands latest release so without further adieu, here is my review of At The Gates ‘The Nightmare Of Being’. 

Unlike what you’d expect from At The Gates, the band have changed up their style for this album by singing acoustic phrases and having an overwhelming feeling of adapting into progressive death metal. As early as the first track ‘Spectre Of Extinction’, the band were not trying to force anyone into a false sense of security, and implement a gloomy, melodic acoustic intro before the song kicks off into a more melodic ambush of riffs and gutturals. Many tracks on the record opt for a more atmospheric feel. Title track ‘The Nightmare Of Being’ constantly shifts from full-throttle metal to a more methodical, slow-paced drone while ‘Touched by the White Hands of Death’ opens with a harrowing and evil sounding melodic phrase that stuck with me for a while. 

Unfortunately, the album has its shortcomings too. ‘Garden of Cyrus’ feels like it could be a generic death metal sample track you’d find programmed into garage band, while the penultimate track ‘Cosmic Pessimism’ just sounds like it hasn’t been mastered well. A lot of riffs sound out of tune or poorly placed while the spoken lyrics are an extreme change from what fans expect from the band and I have to say that this style of the song really does not suit them. 

It’s not all bad though, single ‘The Fall Into Time’ is a real gem on the album. The use of orchestral like backing vocals and foreboding drums that ring out over distorted riffs is quite the thing to listen to. As far as the quality of songs goes on this record, this is by far the cream of the crop however, a close second is the final track of the album ‘Eternal Winter of Reason’. This track is more of a no-nonsense melodic metal track that At The Gates fans are bound to get behind. Sometimes, sticking to what you know yields the best results.

Overall, the album is just ok. A lot of the album feels samey and uninspired and the lows really stick out for me, I was really hoping for a return to greatness for At The Gates however, this is yet another mediocre release that, despite having its moments of greatness, leaves an awful lot to be desired.