With their third album, 1994's highly accomplished Terminal Spirit Disease, Sweden's At the Gates raised their creative stakes beyond most everyone's original expectations, and proved that what had once been a pretty standard and uninventive death metal combo was slowly becoming a true contender in the scene. Right from the get-go, highlights like "The Swarm," "Forever Blind," and the title track venture into melodic territory like never before. Yet they never waver from the band's predetermined path of virulent aggression, and, best of all, keep it all short and sweet for maximum effect. And with extreme (or nonextreme, as it were) experiments like the all-acoustic and cello-laced "And the World Returned," At the Gates showed a willingness to diversify that would soon prove their mettle…

The fifth studio long-player from the Gothenburg-based Swedish melodic death metal veterans, At War with Reality is also the first outing from the group since 1995's Slaughter of the Soul, a record that for all intents and purposes was to be their last. After reuniting in 2008 for a series of reunion shows, the band brushed off rumors of a potential return to the studio, but by 2012, frontman Tomas Lindberg began hinting at the possibility of new material. Released just two years later, the resulting Century Media-issued At War with Reality is a largely story-driven album built around the concepts of magical realism.

Full Dynamic Range Remastered edition of At The Gates fourth studio album.
When it was first released, At the Gates' Earache debut Slaughter of the Soul was regarded as a generally excellent example of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal, and certainly the band's best and most focused album to date. But the commonly held view was that it wasn't anything all that special, either. After all, it lacked the intricate twin-guitar leads of In Flames, the complex song structures of Dark Tranquillity, the progressive artistry of Edge of Sanity, or even the rock & roll underpinnings of latter-day Entombed. Slaughter of the Soul was more obviously rooted in American thrash (especially Slayer) than its peers, and didn't seem to be consciously trying to break new ground…

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…