“He was totally crazy onstage – he was so into the music he used to pass out mid-set”: Tomas Lindberg, remembered by his At The Gates bandmates

“Grieving is gonna be a long process, and this is only one chapter,” considers thoughtful At The Gates bassist Jonas Björler a few days before The Ghost Of A Future Dead’s release.

By any metric, the new album from Jonas' band is a jaw-dropping piece of work. A canny revisitation of their signature blend of fist-pumping fury and melodic dual-guitar action, it’s a clear contender for the year’s best heavy metal record. But the return of this legendary band is one tinged with inevitable sadness, following the death of vocalist Tomas Lindberg from cancer last September.

“I think it’ll help, to have the album out there for people to listen to,” Jonas continues, “but it’s gonna take some time to reflect on everything.”

The seeds for At The Gates were planted when Jonas and his guitar-playing twin Anders first met Tomas as teenagers navigating their local music scene at the end of the 1980s. The latter was already fronting a Satanic death metal band called Grotesque, which he’d formed at just 16.

“Back then he was a prominent figure in the metal underground in Gothenburg, so he was somebody we looked up to,” Jonas recalls. “When we stepped into that world, we had no clue. We had experienced the classic Metallica, Slayer kind of stuff, but we’d never heard of any demo tapes or seven-inches and stuff like that, so we were really impressed by his knowledge. It was about a year later that we started At The Gates. Me and Anders had only just picked up our instruments, but we were very quick learners.”

Starting with 1991 EP Gardens Of Grief, At The Gates released records annually through the first half of the ’90s. Their fourth full-length, Slaughter Of The Soul, would be the one which took their melodic Swedeath sound to the world, inspiring huge swathes of the metal and hardcore landscape of the early 21st century. From Lamb Of God to Trivium to Killswitch Engage, many of the biggest bands of the millennium’s first decade owed a considerable debt to these five lads from Gothenburg.

Well before that, though, it was clear that this bunch and their charismatic frontman were cut from different cloth to their contemporaries.

“Tomas wanted to try a more progressive, unique style of death metal,” explains Jonas. “The first two At The Gates records are really weird! And Tomas was years above us on an intellectual level, so they also have very dark but interesting lyrics. He was interested in literature like Lovecraft and Poe, always looking for new ideas and concepts.”

It wasn’t all just sitting around reading books, mind.

“Back in the early ’90s, when we started out, he was totally crazy onstage. He was so into the music he used to pass out mid-set! The other guys were a little more inexperienced. We all tried but he seemed to be far ahead, y’know?”

Like fellow Swedes Refused with The Shape Of Punk To Come, At The Gates split shortly after releasing their landmark album, giving the rest of the world time to catch up. The Björler brothers and drummer Adrian Erlandsson started thrashers The Haunted, while a busy Tomas played with Skitsystem, Lock Up, The Great Deceiver and loads more. Then, destiny brought them back together in 2008. Anders would later sit out a couple of albums before rejoining in time for what would become The Ghost Of A Future Dead, marking a second full reunion for the line-up (also including rhythm guitarist Martin Larsson) that recorded their best-known work.

“Me, Anders and Tomas have always had a really good songwriting partnership,” enthuses Jonas. “Going back to [the sound of] Slaughter Of The Soul or [2014’s] At War With Reality was something we always talked about, but with Anders back it was even easier to take that step.”

What came out of this reconfiguration is such a perfect encapsulation of the blazing darkness of At The Gates that, given the context of its release, it’s hard not to view it as a deliberate final statement. But in fact, the eighth ATG album was entirely written and almost completely recorded before adenoid cystic carcinoma was discovered in Tomas’ mouth. While this news must have been shattering for the vocalist, he wouldn’t let it derail his work.

“The only thing he hadn’t done was nailing the demo takes for the last three songs,” clarifies Jonas. “And he did that between being diagnosed and having surgery. In retrospect, that was a good idea, because then the album was safe.

“He was very meticulous, he wanted it to be right, but it was the same with everything we’ve done. He always put his whole heart into it.”

Perhaps this is inevitable when writing in metal’s more extreme areas, but Tomas’ lyrics across the album feel uncannily relevant to his then-unforeseen passing. The Phantom Gospel’s opening line ‘I am the manifestation of death’ send shivers up the spine, while Jonas explains that the ‘unspeakable darkness’ referenced on The Dissonant Void proves Tomas was engaging with existential and original concepts right to the end.

“He was trying to convey man’s loneliness in the vastness of space. Being a small intellectual creature in the whole mysterious universe is a really scary subject, so I think he wanted to explore that. The title, The Ghost Of A Future Dead, was something he came up with, that was the only thing that changed after being diagnosed and having the surgery. He was having so many weird drugs that he couldn’t sleep properly, he was having nightmares and visions, and I think it reflected what he felt at the time, so it’s a really fitting title.”

It’s still hard to accept that when closing track Black Hole Emission kicks in, you’re listening to the last new song sung by Tomas Lindberg. But what is undeniable is that the rest of the band have done an incredible job under the worst circumstances, ensuring that every aspect of The Ghost Of A Future Dead is perfect, and that this final act lives up to the standards of their friend and driving force.

“He was fully aware and behind everything we’ve done,” concludes Jonas. “We felt, for his sake and in his memory, it should be exactly as he wanted it to be. It’s his legacy.”

The Ghost Of A Future Dead is out now via Century Media.

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