The death metal band was formed in 1990 in Gothenburg and is considered a pioneer in the genre and for the West Coast's melodic metal sound. Tomas "Tompa" Lindberg's vocals were distinctive for the band.
"Slaughter of the soul" from 1995 was the band's major breakthrough album, where several critics commented on Lindberg's special singing style. "Singer Tomas Lindberg uses a strangled scream that actually makes the lyrics somewhat understandable. It not only gives the music a more human touch, but also strongly resembles the type of singing that became popular among screamo bands in the American punk underground scene", for example, Steve Huey wrote for Allmusic.
At the gates' seventh studio album "The nightmare of being" is the latest to be released and came in 2021. A deep dive into pessimistic philosophy.
It's not a negative album, but more like an introduction to new ideas for me personally, where I try to test new perspectives. You can call it an introduction to pessimism as a concept, I suppose. It's a very dark album, but not a negative one, said Tomas Lindberg to Brooklyn Vegan before the album release.
Lindberg also fronted other bands like Hide, The Crown, Disfear, Skitsystem and the grindcore supergroup Lock Up and Lindberg was ranked as number 30 of 50 on the list of the best front figures in metal ever by the record company Roadrunner Records.
At the Gates disbanded in 1996 but made a comeback in 2007. In August this year, the band told on Instagram that Tomas Lindberg was sick with cancer.
