At The Gates embrace their emotions

At The Gates say their latest album At War With Reality draws on their full range of emotions.

It’s their first album since 1995’s Slaughter Of The Soul and frontman Tomas Lindberg reveals they wanted their comeback record to take fans by surprise.

He tells Full Metal Jackie: “The start of the writing process was a little bit scary. It was hard to mash everything into one concept. I just thought we will take the listener by surprise, but what would challenge them as a comeback record?

“No one else has done a concept record as a comeback album and I thought this might be really intriguing for the fans and showing them that this is a real album.”

At War With Reality launched this week via Century Media and Lindberg says the band have grown and developed in the 19 years since the last album.

He continues: “I hate to use the word maturity because people tend to think it means slowing down. For us, that maturity comes from looking back at our whole career and looking forward and seeing what is At The Gates?

“Looking back at our earlier record, there was more melancholy, more darkness and more despair – so we wanted to mix it all up and have a little bit of every emotion in this record. It’s still full on and in your face, but it portrays a wider range of emotions.”

The band have line up five UK tour dates kicking off this December.

Tour dates

Dec 04: London Forum

Dec 05: Manchester Academy 2

Dec 06: Glasgow Garage

Dec 07: Birmingham Academy

Dec 08: Cardiff Solus

At War With Reality tracklist

El Altar Del Dios Desconocido 2. Death And The labyrinth 3. At War With Reality 4. The Circular Ruins 5. Heroes And Tombs 6. The Conspiracy Of The Blind 7. Order From Chaos 8. The Book Of Sand (The Abomination) 9. The Head Of The Hydra 10. City Of Mirrors 11. Eater Of Gods 12. Upon Pillars Of Dust 13. The Night Eternal

Scott has spent 37 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in 2014 before moving into e-commerce in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, highlights deals, and reviews headphones, speakers, earplugs and more. Over the last 12 years, Scott has written more than 11,500 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog. He's previously written for publications including IGN, Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from news and features, to tech reviews, video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.