We’re three weeks out from the release of At The Gates’ To Drink From The Night Itself. It’s the Gothenburg death metal band’s sixth LP all counted, their second following a 19-year hiatus, and for my money — right now — their best to date.

To be clear, that’s absurdly high praise: In 2008, Decibel called At The Gates “the greatest Swedish death metal band ever.” In 2013, Metal Injection ranked At The Gates’ fourth LP, Slaughter Of The Soul, at #8 on their list of the 10 most influential metal albums — behind stuff like Black Sabbath (#1), Ride The Lightning (#3) and Reign In Blood (#7). Slaughter Of The Soul is an all-time classic. At The Gates can’t make a better album.

But on the merits — on the music — I think they’ve done it. To Drink From The Night Itself is just fucking perfection. It’s the dankest, darkest, deepest thing they’ve ever recorded. It’s also tight as a tension cable. Every song is a knockout. I love it so much. I hold At The Gates to unreasonably high standards, and here they’ve obliterated my expectations.

“Daggers Of The Black Haze” is the third single they’ve dropped in advance of the new LP, and it offers a different look than the first two. Here’s what ATG frontman Tomas Lindberg said about it:

[“Daggers”] represents the more progressive side of the new record. It has a lot of reference-points to our early back catalogue, both style wise and the emotional setting. It is desperate and urgent, but still melancholic and epic.

I’ll cosign that. Hear for yourself.

To Drink From The Night Itself is out 5/18. Pre-order it here.