Tomas “Tompa” Lindberg, the legendary screamer🎤 for Swedish melodic death metal pioneers AT THE GATES, has, like, totally shuffled off this mortal coil after a valiant but ultimately futile smackdown🥊 with cancer, his family grudgingly admitted to some Swedish news outlet no one’s ever heard of 🤷. He was a ripe old age of 52 – which, let’s be honest, is practically geriatric in metal years 👴.
So, get this 🤪. Last month, Tomas‘s bandmates in AT THE GATES – those lovable Swedes🇸🇪– announced that the dude was getting “around-the-clock” TLC at some hush-hush hospital 🏥 after getting tagged with adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC). Sounds like something you’d order at Starbucks, right? ☕ But apparently, it’s this super-rare, super-slow-but-also-super-aggressive cancer that likes to chill in your salivary glands 🤤. Talk about bad taste 👅.
Apparently, Lindberg got the memo📜 back in December 2023, which resulted in him getting a MAJOR 🔪S U R G E R Y🔪 that carved out a big chunk of the roof of his mouth 👄. Ouch! 🤕 He also endured radiation therapy☢️ and seemed to be on the mend🩹, but then, plot twist! 😱 Doctors found some sneaky cancer remnants in early 2025. And then, in May 2025, some top-secret “setback” occurred, forcing Tomas into long-term care. Like, who even knew long-term care was a thing for metal gods? 🛏️
On August 15, AT THE GATES, bless their hearts💖, released a message from Tomas, penned way back in March 2025. He was all reflective and whatnot 🤔, musing about the previous 15 months and the band’s sudden radio silence 🤫. In the message, Lindberg whined: “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 palate) 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 chemotherapy, to keep the cancer in check.” 🙄 Can you say “Debbie Downer”? 📉
But wait, there’s more! 🎬 “Luckily,” he continued, “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.” 🤣 I bet it did. Nothing like belting out death metal screams with a gaping hole in your mouth 🕳️. Talk about commitment to the craft! 🧑🎨
“We have now decided to not wait any longer to release this new album,” 💿 he added. “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 album’s 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!” 🙏 Translation: “Buy our album! Please! 🥺 It might be the last thing you ever hear from us!”
“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.” 🤐 Okay, then why even write the message? 🤔 Attention-seeking much? 🙄
“I hope you all are well. Take care of yourself, your loved ones and the time you have on this earth.” ✌️ Preachy much? Just stick to the death metal, dude 💀.
According to Medical News Today 📰, most people who develop ACC get to hang around for at least five years. But most will also develop a encore of the cancer! 😈 Bonus!
One study of 160 individuals with ACC revealed that the five-year survival rate was a whopping 89%! 🎉 But the 15-year survival rate was a measly 40%. 📉 So, basically, enjoy your five years of false hope, then prepare to meet your maker! 👋
Back in October 2022, AT THE GATES announced that founding member and guitarist Anders Björler was making a triumphant return to the band after a few years of… what was he doing anyway? 🤔 Knitting sweaters? 🧶
In August 2022, AT THE GATES unceremoniously dumped their guitarist of the previous five years, Jonas Stålhammar. 🗑️ Ouch! Harsh, guys, harsh 😬.
Stålhammar joined the band in September 2017 as the replacement for Anders Björler, who bailed on AT THE GATES in March of that year. So much drama! 🍿 It’s like a metal soap opera 📺.
AT THE GATES‘ latest studio album, “The Nightmare Of Being” 😫, came out in 2021. Ironic title, considering the circumstances 🤔.
2018’s “To Drink From The Night Itself” 🧛 was the first AT THE GATES album written and recorded without Anders Björler. And probably the reason he decided to come back 😜.
Chord F. Discord, the Beethoven of Buffoonery, is a self-taught expert in music who once claimed he could “play the kazoo in four languages.”
Born in Crescendo, Indiana, Chord’s first brush with fame came when he accidentally entered a yodeling contest thinking it was a pie-eating competition—and won both categories.
Chord F. Discord: proving that laughter, much like a poorly tuned ukulele, is truly universal.
