There is a shadow prominently looming over At the Gates’ eighth – and most likely final – studio album, and that is the death of vocalist Tomas Lindberg, exactly one month before his 53^rd birthday last year. Standing out in a field of non-melodic vocalists is difficult, but his anguished howl is unique, and fortunately, he can still be heard on ‘The Ghost of a Future Dead’. The album reportedly follows Lindberg’s wishes concerning the track sequencing, the overall sound of the album, the artwork, and the album title. An excellent tribute to one of the key figures of the Gothenburg metal scene.

What’s interesting is that the album could just as well have been a celebration under different circumstances, as ‘The Ghost of a Future Dead’ signals the return of founding guitarist Anders Björler after an absence of two albums. As a result, the album sounds a bit more straightforward and riff-focused than its two darker predecessors, which were primarily written by Björler’s bass-playing twin brother Jonas. It’s not a total throwback to the ‘Slaughter of the Soul’ days, since the atmospheric elements are still there, but the compositions are built around thrashy melodic death metal riffs and dramatic lead guitar themes first and foremost.

Lindberg was very ill when he recorded his vocals, but you would be hard-pressed to notice that when listening to ‘The Ghost of a Future Dead’. There was always something uniquely powerful and emotional about his relatively high-pitched, yet not at all screechy vocal performance, and that is still here in spades. That becomes immediately obvious when the typical melodeath sound that At the Gates pioneered first blasts out of the speakers with ‘The Fever Mask’ and ‘The Dissonant Void’. The album isn’t weighed down by the circumstances under which it was recorded; this is simply a powerful At the Gates album.

Having said that, the album is at its best when at its most atmospheric. Especially the back half of the album includes a few truly spectacular songs. ‘The Parasitical Hive’ combines heavy, almost proggy riffs with layers of dramatic, post-metal-ish guitar parts, while ‘In Dark Distortion’ has a vibe highly reminiscent of post-punk without taking anything away from the metallic brutality of the album. Out of the riffier tracks, I am particularly fond of ‘Of Interstellar Death’, which constantly shifts between dramatic melodeath and all-out thrash assault, and the pounding mid-tempo heaviness of ‘Det Oerhörda’, which has a few surprising riffs.

While it is fairly difficult to separate ‘The Ghost of a Future Dead’ from the circumstances surrounding it, the album celebrates the legacy of At the Gates in style. There are traces of the highly interesting direction they took on the last two albums, but there is also plenty of the thrash-infused melodeath that the band pioneered in the mid-nineties. As a closing chapter to an influential career – and a more unique one than the band is typically credited for – ‘The Ghost of a Future Dead’ serves its purpose, but simply as a strong album, perhaps even more so.

Recommended tracks: ‘In Dark Distortion’, ‘The Parasitical Hive’, ‘Of Interstellar Death’