The Swedish band At The Gates broke up in 1996, just after the release of their towering masterpiece Slaughter Of The Soul. With that album, At The Gates essentially invented a new form of grimy-but-triumphant melodic death metal, and other bands spent decades trying to catch up. Since then, At The Gates have had one of the all-time great second acts. The band reunited to tour in 2007, and after the reunion, they went on to release two shockingly great new albums, 2014’s At War With Reality and 2018’s To Drink From The Night Itself. Now, there’s another new At The Gates album on the way, and we finally get to hear a bit of it.

This summer, At The Gates will drop the new LP The Nightmare Of Being. They announced the album a while ago, and they’ve just shared the blazing album opener “Spectre Of Extinction.” The song pulls that great metal trick, opening with ornate classical guitars before cranking everything way up. The song itself is an absolute riff stampede, and it’s got King Diamond guitarist Andy La Rocque, who recorded some of the album and who plays guest lead guitar here.

On the song, At The Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg Redant says:

It is always very hard to choose which song to release to the public first, especially with this album having so many layers and textures. We did feel, however, that this, the opening track of the record, represented the overall feel of the album. It has the musical depths that you would expect from an AT THE GATES track, and still carries that intensity and urgency that we have always tried to get across with our music.

Check it out below.

The Nightmare Of Being is out 7/2 on Century Media.