Month: February 2026

At The Gates – The Fever Mask

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week1 Comment

We now embark on an occasion both triumphant and sad, as we have the first single from the upcoming At The Gates album. The song is called The Fever Mask and it hails from the album The Ghost of a Future Dead. The album releases on April 24. It marks the eighth studio album from At The Gates.

This song and album arrive on a tragic note, as singer Tomas Lindberg died in September 2025. He recorded his vocals for this record early on in late 2023 or early ’24, just before starting treatment for a rare form of cancer in his mouth that would require surgery on his jaw. His and At The Gates’ plans were to wait out Lindberg’s treatment and see if he would be able to return to performing, but sadly it was not to be.

In far less tragic news, the album also marks the recording return to the band of guitarist Anders Björler, a founding member who left in 2017 and returned in 2022.

The Fever Mask is a brief track, coming in at a hair over three minutes. A sort of music video was made for the song, it features mostly still photos of the band and pays special attention to the departed Lindberg. This does sound like a “right down the middle,” on the rails At The Gates song. The group had gone in some experimental directions on their prior two albums but have stated that the new album fits sonically with their immortal Slaughter of the Soul record and the reunion album At War With Reality.

Beyond the upcoming album release, we don’t know much about the future of At The Gates. Bassist Jonas Björler (twin brother of Anders) stated in an interview with Chaoszine (transcribed in part here on Blabbermouth.net), the band may do some shows to celebrate the life of Tomas Lindberg, but they are unsure of their path forward at this time.

At The Gates are one of my favorite bands and one of a very few I pre-order upon first offering without any hesitation, and it’s not like I needed any further prompting with the heavy air surrounding this release. With the way The Fever Mask sounds, I have no doubt this album will fit just fine alongside the other titans of metal found within the At The Gates discography, and that this final testament of Tomas Lindberg will serve his legacy well.

Heaven & Hell announce Breaking Out Of Heaven box set

On By bigbadburchIn Upcoming Music2 Comments

One thing I’ve been trying to do is avoid buying really expensive music this year. Apparently the estate of Ronnie James Dio does not align with my financial concerns.

Just announced is the box set for Heaven And Hell, the outfit Dio formed with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice in the mid 00’s as a workaround to Sharon Osbourne’s absolute control of the Black Sabbath name. The group gigged on the three Dio-Sabbath records and also released their own original studio effort The Devil You Know. The band offered up two live albums in their time, before Dio succumbed to cancer in 2010.

This box set, entitled Breaking Out Of Heaven, holds reissues of the studio LP and two live albums – Live From Radio City Music Hall and Neon Nights: 30 Years Of Heaven & Hell. This set is 7 LPs and does run for a princely sum of $200. The studio record does also have the three new songs recorded for The Dio Years box set added as bonus tracks. The set is due to release on March 27th of 2026, just a month-plus down the road.

While this isn’t cheap, all a person has to do is have a gander at current Discogs prices for the original versions of these albums to see what a steal this actually is. It is a sorely needed reissue – my quick search through everything indicated I’d have to spend at least $500 to get the original records, so $200 is just fine with me.

So yes I am going to splurge yet again for another Dio piece for my collection, I’m also awaiting the Rainbow CD box I outlined awhile back that is now also due for release on the same day as this. In terms of Black Sabbath and related stuff this actually very nearly completes my collection. I only need two studio Sabbath albums and some live stuff to finish that off. While this isn’t actually Black Sabbath in name, it might as well be Sabbath. Given that key people are now dead and gone I don’t really want to hand wring too much over the arguments involved, but for my personal collection this will file right in with the other Sabbath releases.

So all there is left to do is wait until March 27, around then is when both this and the Rainbow box are supposed to hit. I hope my neighbors like Dio because they are going to hear plenty of him once these boxes hit my mailbox.