at-the-gates

At the Gates confirm new album, due late 2014

By Doug Moore

At the Gates

This past Friday’s teaser video made it pretty obvious that Swedish death metal giants At the Gates are going to release their first new album in almost 20 years this year, but stopped short of officially confirming it. Unsurprisingly, they’ve made it official — they’ll record their new album, entitled At War With Reality, over the summer and aim for a late-2014 release via Century Media.

It’s not totally clear to me why the band bothered with an obvious teaser video so shortly before the announcement itself, but such are the vagaries of the modern press cycle. This album will undoubtedly be one of the most talked-about metal releases of the year, regardless of how well it turns out. After the recent spate of successful death metal reunion albums, expectations are running high for this effort, but it bears remembering that ATG’s lineup have gone on to checkered careers since their original breakup. Vocalist Tomas Lindberg has done both well (Disfear, Lock Up) and poorly (The Great Deceiver) by turns, while the Björler brothers and Adrian Erlandsson have had an inconsistent run with The Haunted. Still, the prospect of new ATG has considerable awesomeness potential, and it increases chances that they’ll tour North America extensively in the coming year or so — always a bonus.

Read the band’s full statement on the new album below…

“So, here we are almost 24 years since the birth of AT THE GATES, and some 18+ years since our latest album ‘Slaughter Of The Soul’. A lot of years have passed and we have embarked on some life-changing reunion tours and shows the last couple of years.

So, why make a new album you might ask, and why now? Well, what we learned from the last couple of years hanging out and playing shows together, is that we enjoy what we do to the fullest extent. We love playing music together, and we love to hang out as friends. But, as a musician, we constantly write new music. It’s a huge part of our identities.

We are fully aware that we have made some very drastic statements in interviews as well as the closing words on the DVD about the longevity of AT THE GATES, but things change, situations change and people change. When Anders sent the first song last summer, we had zero expectations of the outcome. We only knew one thing – That it sounded amazing! At the time we weren’t even sure there would be an album, but as things progressed, more songs came into existence, and we knew we were on to something great.

We know you are all curious about the new material, and to make a simple explanation of where we are at musically, we would describe it as a perfect mix between early AT THE GATES & ‘Slaughter of the Soul’-era AT THE GATES, trying to maintain the legacy and the history.

We chose Century Media as a worldwide partner for the upcoming album. We have all been friends for years with people at the label. Jonas & Anders have a history with THE HAUNTED there (as well as Adrian with PARADISE LOST).

So, we hope to bring you updates about the progress of the new album soon. The plan is to record the album in June/July with a tentative release in October / November of 2014 on Century Media Records.”

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