The Nightmare of Being

The Nightmare of Being, At the Gates' seventh album, came three years after To Drink from the Night Itself; by May 2020 eight songs were already demoed. Tomas Lindberg built the concept on the philosophy of pessimism, starting from Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, and called the record an introduction to pessimism as a concept, very dark but not negative. At Roadburn 2019, which Lindberg curated, the band opened their special set with a King Crimson song and covered Philip Glass; when the audience did not flinch, they decided to push their progressive side much further, and the extra time the pandemic gave them made the album, in Lindberg's view, more cinematic. It was recorded in several Swedish studios: drums with Jens Bogren at Studio Gröndal, guitars and bass with Andy LaRocque of King Diamond at Sonic Train Studio, and vocals with Per Stålberg at Welfare Sounds. Bogren mixed and mastered it at Fascination Street Studios, and LaRocque plays a guest solo on "Spectre of Extinction". "Garden of Cyrus", sketched early by Jonas Björler and based on a book by the English writer Thomas Browne, is the most King Crimson-like piece, with a saxophone winding through it, and "Cosmic Pessimism" sets words from Eugene Thacker's book of the same name to a krautrock pulse. Eva Nahon created the visual concept and the cover. Century Media released the album on 2 July 2021, after videos for "Spectre of Extinction" and "The Paradox", directed by Patric Ullaeus, and for "The Fall into Time" by Costin Chioreanu. It reached No. 8 in Germany, No. 20 in Sweden, where it topped the physical and vinyl charts, No. 21 in Finland and No. 3 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart, and Blabbermouth gave it 9.5 out of 10. Limited editions carried a bonus disc of nine live recordings, four from Roadburn, as did Trooper Entertainment's Japanese edition, out the same day. It was Jonas Stålhammar's last album with the band, and the last released in Lindberg's lifetime.