At the Gates Release “Paradox”-ical New Song

At the Gates have released the second single from their forthcoming album, The Nightmare of Being. It’s called “The Paradox,” and it is every bit as awesome as the first single from Nightmare, “Spectre of Extinction.”

Like a lot of AtG, “The Paradox” is, indeed, paradoxical. Does any genre capture the inherit link between rage and sadness the way melodeath does? “The Paradox” will let you mosh ’til your bones are mush, and there’s a deliberate, subtle dissonance during the verses the makes it feel off-kilter (there was a second there when I thought I had accidentally started playing two different songs at once in two different windows… but no, that’s just how the song sounds).

But there’s also a pretty distinct undercurrent of melancholy in the song, particularly during… well… I was gonna say “the chorus,” because it has some purdy acoustic gee-tars in the mix, but it’s really pretty much every part of the song that isn’t the verses and the last thirty seconds.

Those last thirty seconds, by the way, are about as perfect an outro as any metal song has ever had. Be prepared to headbang a hole straight through your wall.

One last thing worth noting maybe: “Spectre” and “Paradox” are the first two tracks on Nightmare — in that order — so if you listen to them back-to-back, it’s like listening to the first ten minutes of the album.

Listen to “The Paradox” below. The Nightmare of Being comes out July 2 on Century Media. Pre-order it here.

[via The PRP]