"Tomas Lindberg was not the voice of death metal he was so much better than that. During his 35-year career fronting Swedish band At the Gates, he never toed the line, never grunted about loving violence and hating Christianity because the genre dictated that you do so. Rather, he ripped up the rulebook with both his messaging and his delivery, setting a new standard for distinctiveness in extreme music."
"Yet, unlike his peers, he was seldom concerned with the suffering caused by a chainsaw or organised religion. It was the suffering inside of us, rooted in our own expectations, trauma and follies. Twenty-two years of pain and I can feel it closing in, goes the bridge of 1995's semi-autobiographical fan-favourite track Cold. The will to rise above, tearing my insides out."
Tomas Lindberg fronted Swedish band At the Gates for 35 years and reshaped extreme metal with distinctive messaging and a wailing vocal delivery. He centered lyrical focus on internal suffering rooted in personal expectations, trauma and follies rather than on gore or anti-religion tropes. The semi-autobiographical 1995 track Cold expresses prolonged pain and a will to rise above. At the Gates formed in Gothenburg in 1990, initially exploring extended run times, structure-agnostic songwriting and violin solos on early albums The Red in the Sky Is Ours and With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness. The band tightened its approach after Alf Svensson's 1993 departure and released the thrash-influenced EP Terminal Spirit Disease. Lindberg was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma and died aged 52.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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