At the Gates is a Swedish death metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1990. The band was a major progenitor of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal alongside In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. Prior to their first disbandment in 1996, At the Gates released four albums, ending with and including Slaughter of the Soul (1995), which has been seen as a landmark in the mid-1990s Swedish death metal scene as well as being a major inspiration for many metalcore bands. After reuniting for a one-off tour in 2008, the band reformed once again in 2011, and they have since released three more albums: At War with Reality (2014), To Drink from the Night Itself (2018) and The Nightmare of Being (2021).

Melodic death metal is a subgenre of death metal that employs highly melodic guitar riffs, often borrowing from traditional heavy metal. The genre features the heaviness of death metal but with highly melodic or harmonized guitar riffs and solos, and often features high-pitched shrieked vocals alongside the low-pitched growls commonly featured in traditional death metal. Pioneered by the English heavy metal band Carcass with their 1993 album Heartwork, melodic death metal developed further in Sweden in the mid-1990s. The Swedish death metal scene did much to popularise the style, soon centering in the "Gothenburg metal" scene. At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul, Dark Tranquillity's The Gallery, and In Flames' The Jester Race, all released in the mid-1990s, were highly influential albums in melodic death metal, with At the Gates and In Flames being the two most common influences on North American 2000s heavy metal bands. Many American heavy metal bands emulated At the Gates' sound, resulting in the usage of the phrase "At the Gates worship".