Tomas Lindberg of At the Gates on the Oath

At the Gates will release the highly anticipated follow-up to 1995's Slaughter of the Soul on October 28 and vocalist Tomas Lindberg joined me on The Oath to talk about the record and more.

The release of "At War With Reality" is without a doubt one of the biggest stories in metal here in 2014 as At the Gates went out on a high note when the group disbanded in 1996, leaving a lot of fans wondering what might have been. At last, we will know the answer to the question.

I asked Tomas how it felt to know that every metal outlet on the planet from magazines to blogs to radio shows was talking about the return of At the Gates.

Of course, it's impressive and it's very humbling to see people so interested in what you do. We knew that we had listeners - to this extent is almost overwhelming.

"Of course, it's impressive and it's very humbling to see people so interested in what you do," he said of the attention the band's been getting. "We knew that we had listeners - to this extent is almost overwhelming."

With fans' expectations so high and so many in the metal community keeping an eye on At the Gates, the band had to ensure their new material was up to par - especially when it came to the group's own expectations.

"We kind of like, had to make sure it was up to par with, you know, what we were expecting, let alone the fans, from the new record. So, therefore we wrote in secrecy for almost a year before we went public with the idea that we were writing," he said of the writing sessions.

As of this posting, At the Gates haven't announced a North American tour in support of At War With Reality but Tomas assured me the band will be announcing something soon. Keep an eye on atthegates.se for the latest on the Gothenburg greats.