By "pretty cool" do you mean one of the best OSDM albums ever? Because that's what it is.

I don't have a problem with Sentenced's later work but OP is right - it's not as good as their first two albums.

later Sentenced is just heavy metal music that happens to be a little more melancholic than usual. It's got a character to it and while I don't enjoy it as much as north From here, I think they were sincere enough and was kind of happy for them as they finally settled on a style and seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

Anyway, I'm pretty forgiving of this nowadays honestly. If I like a band enough I'll go with them as they change. if not, I likely won't. I think a major upheaval in a band's lineup can be more disastrous than a style change. So long as the membership and songwriters are the same, you can usually sort of understand where their heads are at even if at a certain point you have to say, "no, as an audience I'm not really on board with this, but good luck, it's at least interesting".
Many of the bands brought up in this thread are examples of what seems to me less of a style change and, perhaps, more of a simplification of a previous sound. There could be lots of reasons for this. For a band that tours heavily, sometimes they just realise it's more fun to play more straightforward music with things like groove and rock elements. It sucks when they can't pull it off (ahem, Atrocity) but I can comprehend the justification for it.

I will concede that, as much as I've gone soft in my approaching middle age and don't really like being too hard on bands and artists anymore, paradise lost starting with Host is some really, incredibly dull music to my ears without anything redeeming at all, and though sure, they've gotten heavy again and all, I still think it's pretty dull, what they're doing. Just can't seem to enjoy anything. Macintosh seems like a really good lead player who hardly ever gets to do anything. I hardly even listen to the old albums now for some reason.

North From Here is OSDM? I love that album and I appreciate that you agree, but I think that's kinda stretching the definition of OSDM due to the other elements and influences on the album on display.

Honestly, I don't mind some of the tracks off Host, I even might like some of them. However, I do think everything Host and after is suffering from severe Metallica syndrome. That is, they wanted to do something different and disappointed their old fans while not gaining many new ones, feigned a "return to form" by changing their genre back to one approximately similar to what they were before but with a bunch of modern crap and boring rock elements added in there to "keep up with the times". It happened to most of the Big Four, it happened to Candlemass, and I think it happened to Paradise Lost.

Metallica dragged quite a few bands into their most boring eras as they attempted to emulate the black album

I don't mean OSDM as a genre or style, just old school in the literal sense that it's not a modern death metal album.

Anybody else thinks North From Here is actually a melodic black metal album, or am I on my own on this one?

Melodic Black/Death I'd say like Sacramentum, Dissection

I know, right?! Such a 180 degrees manoeuvre from their stale, uber-boring debut! What an album.

North From Here has black metal elements, yes. It's a very interesting collection of influences actually, it's primarily melodic death metal but not in the style of hackneyed melodeath, more akin to early At the Gates than most melodeath.

Shadows of Past is a really good Finndeath record (although not really as overtly Finnish sounding as you may expect) but their progression on the sophomore is impressive. I'm surprised a lot of people found the album boring. It's not very unique but I think it's written very well and the riffs are good.

I always compare North From Here to the very impressive Silence From The world Beyond by A Canorous Quintet, in that it is indeed a death metal album but the undertones and backbone of the album are very much melodic black metal of the Swedish brand, circa mid nineties such as Algaion, Dawn and such. A very unique sound and aesthetics overall.
And about Shadows of Past, look there are some pretty impressive Finnish death metal albums from the same era (Slumber of Sullen Eyes, Children of the Scorn to a lesser degree), but Sentenced's debut isn't one of them.

What metric do you mean "impressive"? Technical ability? Hooks?

It transcends words really. Listen to Silence From The World Beyond and you'll understand better than anything I could describe using mere words.
For me, it is the best melodic death metal album I have ever listened to (sans the melodeath cliches that we all are familiar with and dislike); it is dark, dynamic, catchy and devoid of that Gothenburg influence. North From Here is a close second. But really you could lump all those mid nineties Swedish bands together as they all convey the same aesthetic, as I've mentioned, the debut album by Algaion, the debut by Dawn and a handful of other (not many) albums I failed to mention (someone already mentioned Storm of the Light's Bane, which may belong to this happy bunch as well).

Danzig in 1995. That was a pretty bad move and it took him quite a few years to recover somewhat.

A couple of newer thrash metal bands suitable to this thread:

- Finnish band Lost Society turned into sounding something like Five Finger Death Punch...

- Italians Ultra-Violence turned into metalcore/djent/pop type hybrid...

I went and looked up to see what Ultra-Violence is up to and.....wow.

Another example is Black Tide

Went from playing heavy metal in the vein of Iron Maiden, and then some of the key members left, afterwards they then into a Deathcore group.

I just checked this out and they sound pretty decent, so thanks for the band recommendation lmao

I remember when these guys were supposed to be the next big thing or something. Not that I ever believe this kind of hype, but their debut was fairly good and promising. It sucks that they fizzled out like that.