AT THE GATES have completed the visual half of "The Ghost Of A Future Dead". The Swedish melodic death metal pioneers have released a full-album animated movie for the record — the album that doubles as their farewell to frontman Tomas Lindberg, who died in September 2025.
The film is the work of Costin Chioreanu of Twilight 13 Media, a longtime collaborator of the band, who built a single conceptual storyline that runs the length of the record and tracks its music and lyrics from end to end. Chioreanu handled the painting, the filming, the editing and the production himself. Animated pieces for "The Dissonant Void" and "In Dark Distortion" had already surfaced; the videos for the remaining songs, and the full-album cut that strings them together, are now online.
"This is by far the most intense project I've done, not only due the circumstances but also because the album is so intense and it requires an insane rhythm for the whole dynamic," Chioreanu said. "It is also the first time that I am doing a full album art video and, honestly, I think it will remain singular of this kind in my career, as I've been over several of my limits with this one. But I am so happy that I could finish this monument for my friend Tomas and for his magical band, who will remain with my heart and my memory till the end of my time here and beyond."
"The Ghost Of A Future Dead" is the band's eighth studio album and came out on April 24 through Century Media Records, recorded and mixed by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro. It entered the Swedish official chart at No. 1 — the first time AT THE GATES have ever topped it — and also went to No. 1 on the country's physical, vinyl and hard rock charts.
The record had been finished and fully mixed since June 2024, and was held back while the band waited to see whether Lindberg's condition would improve. He had been diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare oral cancer, in December 2023; the surgery that followed removed a large portion of the roof of his mouth. He got his vocals down before going under the knife, and those takes are what ended up on the album.
"He managed to sing all the vocal demos for all the songs. So that's what we used for the album," bassist Jonas Björler has said. "He did good versions or good takes in a studio in Gothenburg before the surgery." Lindberg was 52.
Three symphonic tribute concerts follow, at the Gothenburg Concert Hall on December 3, 4 and 5, with the band's songs reinterpreted in orchestral form.