Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Tomas Lindberg of At The Gates reveals alarming health diagnosis
I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Sometimes, there are news that are harder to write, and this is one of them. Swedish melodic death metal pioneers At The Gates abruptly announced at the beginning of last year that all of their upcoming gigs would be cancelled. Since then, they have not released any information. The reason behind their silence has now been made public: co-founder and singer Tomas Lindberg received a cancer diagnosis in December 2023 and has since had extensive radiation and surgery.
Hello everyone. I guess some of you may have been wondering why it has been so silent on the At the Gates front lately. Well, in December 2023, I was diagnosed with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma (a cancer in the mouth and pallet) and have since then gone through a lot, it has been a very tough year.
“First there was a major surgery, where they took away a big part of the roof of the mouth. This was followed by radiation therapy for two months, and eversince it has been a long hard path towards recovery.
“Now, in the beginning of 2025, they have found some remains of the cancer, and it is inaccessible by surgery or radiation. So, we will see what the next step is, but probably some form of chemo therapy, to keep the cancer in check.
Luckily, we recorded vocals for the demos for the new album before all of this happened. The last version of the vocals, the ones that will end up on the album, were recorded in ONE day, mostly one takes, the DAY before the surgery, just to make sure we HAD the album, so to speak. So the vocals were actually recorded BEFORE the rest of the album…. a bit different, but it felt good to have it done.
We have now decided to not wait any longer to release this new album. We had first planned to wait with the release until we knew if/when I would be able to sing again, and we were able to support the release with shows. Now when everything about the future is a bit more unsure it feels good to deliver this album. It is an album that we all are very proud of, and it’s the first time in 10 years that Jonas and I have worked together with Anders writing an albums’ worth of music. It is a bit more of a return to the ‘roots’, probably best described as a mix between the two last albums we did with Anders (Slaughter of the Soul and At War with Reality). Hope you all will enjoy it!
Please respect that we don’t want to make a big thing about all this, and that I won’t be answering interviews concerning the cancer, the treatment or the recovery. We just wanted this to be out in the open, as we wanted to explain to our fans why we have been quiet for such a long time.
I hope you all are well. Take care of yourself, your loved ones and the time you have on this earth.
While this is a challenging time, we’re staying positive but, even in a best-case-scenario we know the recovery will take a long time. We kindly ask that you respect Tomas’ and his family’s privacy during this period.
We know how much the band and the music mean to him — Tomas is incredibly proud of the new At the Gates album we’ve been working on, and we will try to get you more details on this upcoming release very soon.
Thank you for your ongoing support, patience, and understanding.