Melodic Death Metal Review: AT THE GATES – THE NIGHTMARE OF BEING

Neue Scheiben, Film- und Buchtipps News 11. Juli 2021 Reviews

Mit ihrem neuen Album, „A Nightmare Of Being“ werden AT THE GATES wieder einmal ihrem Ruf als einer der spannendsten Melodic Death Metal-Acts gerecht.

Melodic Death Metal Review: AT THE GATES – THE NIGHTMARE OF BEING

Mit ihrem neuen Album, „A Nightmare Of Being“ werden AT THE GATES wieder einmal ihrem Ruf als einer der spannendsten Melodic Death Metal-Acts gerecht.

Haben AT THE GATES ihren Legendenstatus in der Göteborger Melodic Death Metal Szene der 90er mit Alben wie „Slaughter Of The Soul“ gegründet, zementierten sie ihn seit ihrem Comeback in 2014 mit „At War With Reality“. Mit ihrem dritten Album nach der Reunion, „A Nightmare Of Being“ kommt eine mächtige Ladung vom Zementmischer dazu. AT THE GATES bleiben sich kompromisslos treu und definieren sich selbst dennoch einen Schritt weit neu.

„A Nightmare Of Being“ ist ein gewagtes und hochfaszinierendes Konzeptalbum, das die düsteren Offenbarungen der Philosophie des Pessimismus thematisiert. Das Konzept entstammt einer Zeit von intensivem Lesen und Nachdenken, wie Sänger Tomas Lindberg Redant erklärte: „I had just read something by Thomas Ligotti – he writes horror and there’s a lot of Lovecraft-like, dark philosophy in there, the philosophy of pessimism. Then I found Ligotti had written another book called The Conspiracy Against The Human Race, which is more a biography of pessimist thought. I thought, ‘Wow, this is cool…’ and when I started reading that, it was him defending his worldview and going into detail about other pessimistic writers that had come before and how they can sometimes be connected to the horror genre. He namedropped so many people in that book, that it became a starting point for finding all this other stuff, and then I knew where we wanted to go with this record.“

Gleichzeitig gehen AT THE GATES stärker als zuvor experimentelle, progressive Wege, ohne aber an Härte einzubüßen. Auch bei den poetischen Lyrics fusioniert Tomas Lundberg Redant die AT THE GATES-Typisches mit wirren Prog Rock-Verspieltheiten und Momenten überragender Größe. Tomas erklärt den Hintergrund: “I told Jonas (Björler) I wanted this to be a really dark record. The last one was dark but maybe more aggressive. It was more about struggle and resistance. This one is deeper, darker and more philosophical, so I told Jonas he could really go far with this one, with the ideas that we always had about putting the progressive stuff in there. Pretty early on he came out with the first sketches for Garden Of Cyrus which is the more King Crimson-like song on there. After that we knew that we could do this and there was nothing holding us back from where we want to go. Of course, it’s not the most commercial album, in that sense, but none of the albums are, and they’re all different.”

Besonders das genannte „Garden of Cyrus“ (mit Saxophon) und das gewagte, experimentelle „Cosmic Pessimism“ weisen neue Wege aus, die AT THE GATES bereit waren zu beschreiten, wie Tomas erzählte: “Midway through the writing process we did our show at Roadburn 2019. It was the biggest project we’ve ever done and we felt that people were up for it. We opened with a King Crimson song and we did a Philip Glass cover and people didn’t flinch, and I guess that said to us that people might not think it’s too weird if we went all the way with this record. I guess a true follower would not be shocked by a saxophone. They will understand completely that we love Coltrane and Crimson, so this is logical. We had a violin on the first record, 30 years ago, you know what I mean?”

Aber bei aller Experimentierfreudigkeit haben AT THE GATE den Voll-auf-die-12-Faktor nicht verlernt. Die Granate „The Paradox“ ist etwas für Wall-of-Death-Hungrige und „The Abstract Enthroned“ gibt ebenfalls Vollgas.

Das hochinteressante „Touched By The White Hands Of Death“ startet zwar mit Flötenklängen und Orchester, dreht dann aber mächtig auf und schwingt die Melodic Death Metal-Axt. Ähnlich fusioniert „The Fall Into Time” AT THE GATES-typischen Death Metal mit progressiven Klängen und düsterer Atmosphäre.

Das düstere „A Nightmare Of Being“ kehrt die pessimistische Thematik des Albums hervor und schleppt sich durch dunkle Sphären. Das groovende „Cult of Salvation” und die großartige Abschlussnummer „Eternal Winter of Reason” sind konzeptionelle Bindeglieder zwischen der harten und der experimentellen Seite des Albums.

Um den richtigen Sound zu schaffen, holten sich AT THE GATES Unterstützung von Studio-Guru Jens Bogren für die Drums und Ausnahmegitarrist Andy LaRoque für Gitarre und Bass. Den Grund dafür erläuterte Tomas: “When we realised we were going all the way with all these weird arrangements and diving into these dark waters, we thought that maybe we should have a more natural and analogue feel to it all. But also crisp and clear so you hear all the small details. Jens did the drums, and he is so much into the details. But then we wanted to record all the guitars and bass with Andy (La Rocque) because he has a great ear, to bring out the riffs and the solos as clear as possible, because he’s another level of guitar player. Andy plays a solo again, on Spectre Of Extinction, which is great, of course.”

Zusammengefasst ist „A Nightmare Of Being“ einfach eine geile Scheibe, die ordentlich Härte, aber auch viel Interessantes zu bieten hat. Am besten beschrieb es aber Tomas Lundberg Redant im Vergleich zum AT THE GATES-Legendenstatus: “Yes, for some people we are the band with just that one record from 1995. But really, Slaughter Of The Soul stands out in our career as the most one-dimensional record we ever did! [Laughs] So it’s kind of weird that we’re judged by that one, because all the other records are a lot more interesting, and this one is the most interesting of all. I think the maturity of being at it for 30 years might have something to do with it. We couldn’t have done this before. But we’re always moving forward.”

Anspieltipps: The Fall Into Time, Touched By The White Hands Of Death, Cult Of Salvation

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