|
Swedish highly influential death metal band from Gothenburg. They are often considered as the pioneers of "Gothenburg metal", or melodic death metal style.
At The Gates was founded in September 1990 by Tomas Lindberg, Alf Svensson, Anders Björler, Jonas Björler and Adrian Erlandsson and it was very much an amalgamation of the bands Grotesque and Infestation. Band’s recording career started with the “Gardens of Grief" EP, which was released by their local label Dolores in 1991. After this they signed to Peaceville Records and released their debut album "The Red in the Sky Is Ours" in 1992. After the “With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness" album in 1993 Alf Svensson left the band in order to concentrate on his other careers as tattoo artist and comic illustrator. His replacement was found in former House Of Usher guitarist Martin Larsson. After the 1994’s "Terminal Spirit Disease” the band was signed to Earache Records and released “Slaughter of the Soul" in 1995. In the summer of 1996, shortly after touring for the album, Anders however decided to quit the band, which resulted in the whole group splitting apart at the height of their career.
After the split-up Adrian, Jonas and Anders joined The Haunted. Later Adrian went on to join... Read More ... Cradle of Filth, Paradise Lost and Vallenfyre among others. Tomas Lindberg went on to make music with bands such as Skitsystem, Disfear, Lock Up, The Great Deveicer and The Crown.
In 2008, after years of speculation and persuasion, At The Gates announced a reunion tour, which ended up lasting for five years and culminated in the announcement of a new studio album "At War With Reality”, which was released in October 2014.
In March 2017 Anders Björler announced that he had left the band. He was later replaced by Jonas Stålhammar and band’s sixth full length album “To Drink From The Night Itself” was released in May 2018.
Musicwise At The Gates’ first two albums were very progressive and complex death metal, mainly due to guitarist Alf Svensson’s very original and unorthodox composition style. Since Svensson left the group in 1993, the primary musical responsibility was on the Björler twins, which led to considerable streamlining of the music and the excessive “prog” or "art" elements of their earlier works were cut down. The focus was now more on writing good and catchy songs, which then culminated on the massively effective deaththrash attack of “Slaughter Of The Soul”. The comeback album “At War With Reality” continued very much in the vein of their “Terminal/Slaughter” style, whereas “To Drink From The Night Itself” showed somewhat clearer departure from this and brought back some of the more progressive elements and incorporated darker moods overall.
|
