At The Gates’ Tomas Lindberg Experiences Setback in Private Battle Against Cancer
Remember back in January 2024 when At The Gates unexpectedly axed all of their spring and summer shows? They’ve been pretty much radio silent since around that time. Yet thanks to the release of a joint statement from both the band and frontman Tomas Lindberg earlier today, we now know the reason behind all that silence and it’s a pretty dire situation.
According to the band, Lindberg’s been privately dealing with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma, which is a cancer of the mouth and pallet. We’re talking major surgery, chemotherapy, the works. Unfortunately, a recent health setback pushed the band to release the following statement:
“We want to take a moment to update you on what’s been happening with At the Gates, and to do so, we need to take you back about a year and a half.
“Below, you’ll find a message from Tomas, written this past March 2025, where he reflects on the past 15 months and the reasons for the radio silence. However, in early May, Tomas experienced a health setback. Since then, he has been hospitalised and has been receiving dedicated care in a specialized ward where he is being closely monitored around the clock.
“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.”
That sounds like an incredibly difficult and harrowing experience to go through as a band, it’s almost hard to imagine what it’s been like for Lindberg. As the band stated, they’ve been sitting on a statement from their frontman since this past March.
Rather than paraphrase what he said, here’s Lindberg’s personal explanation of what’s going on and how he’s been dealing with his ongoing health issues:
“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 ever since 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.”
It’s wild to think they recorded Lindberg’s parts before the rest of the band, but that shows the level of dedication he has for At The Gates. As it stands, the so far unnamed new record has no release date or any other information, so we’ll have to wait to see what that looks like.
We at MetalSucks want to wish Lindberg the best in his recovery. Here’s hoping we can get to see him killing it on stage sometime in the future.
