I am looking for true melodic death bands.
A lot of bands tend to put either too much power metal influences
or Metalcore

I am looking for a more pure stuff:
My favorites so far were:
In Flames (Subterranian, Jesters Race)
Ceremonial Oath ("Carpet")
Dark Tranquility (The Gallery, Minds 1)
At The Gates (everything except "Slaughter of The Soul")
Also I enjoy "Slaughter of The Soul" - it has metalcore ideas IMHO
Gates of Ishtar (This is amazing band, 3 albums)
Ablaze My Sorrow (1996 1998 2002 great band)
Insomnium (Finnish - First album reminded of old In Flames, but amazing band as well)
Noumena (Finnish as well)
Daylight Dies (also they have doom influences I enjoy them a lot)

Crap like (Killswitch Engage or As I Lay Dying)
Children of Bodom like stuff does not work
Anyone have more recomendations?

Try Eucharist.



Nope. If it has, it's only because a lot of -core bands took influence from it.

Disarmonia Mundi is my favorite melodeath band. They have great vocal variety rarely seen in melodic death metal.

Yea, dude Slaughter of the Soul was around before metalcore, and that's where the shitty core bands took their influence from (yet someone turned the awesomeness of SotS into complete shit).

This is more along the lines of pure death metal with melodic leads, melodicish vocals and riffs. Check out God Dethroned, especially The Lair of the White Worm, and some songs from Passiondale and various songs from other albums (a lot of their songs are pure death/thrash however, so if you're not into that don't get the whole album. Good songs with melodies are The Lair of the White Worm, The Warcult and Soul Sweeper)

Check out The Absence, you'll love them.

Vehemence - God Was Created is the best melodic death metal album is all time.

Here are some songs from the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NED7bbJ4FyM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NNCoif_6FQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NNCoif_6FQ


Their other two albums are hit or miss though.

Metalcore officially came to be in 91, 4 years before SotS was around.

Look up Overcast (US). They were also one of the precursory bands to Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall.

----------------
Now playing: Rotting Christ - Diastric Alchemy

I've always thought of the first wave of metalcore to be metalcore minus the melodeath influences. I guess later bands brought in more "commercial" elements into their music.

Try the first album by Disillusion. "Back to Times of Splendor" is a great melodeath album with some cool progressive bits that don't cause it to drag at all. I realize that lots of people associate Kalmah with Children of Bodom, but you should also look into "The Black Waltz" by Kalmah, which is their most death-metal infused album to date, with great riffs, great songwriting and epic keyboards that don't really borrow from the texts of power metal too much.

You might like Enter My Silence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuoHknWJ7_A

Mors Principium Est

their last 2 albums are spectacular in my opinion

Slaughter of the Soul may not be metalcore, but it is pretty disgraceful, if compared to The Red in the Sky. I would highly recommend the following though (some of these may be dubious, as people use the term "melodic" for all different kinds of shit)

Dissection- The Somberlain. This has some black metal influence and is in my opinion way better than "Storm", although if you prefer the more heavy metal stuff, give that a try as well.

Amorphis- The first couple of albums and E.P are essential, very original doomy melodic death metal, see my review of the E.P for more info.

Carcass- Necroticism DTI. This has a grind influence also, but I would also consider it fairly "melodic" death metal, especially due to the soloing by newly introduced Amott.

I also would agree with the Eucharist recommendation. You may also like the early Swedish scene, although not melodeath it is more melodic that their American counterparts. My suggestion would be debuts from Unleashed, Dismember, Nihilst, Necrophobic....and the list could go on.

Two completely different albums with two completely different musical aims. I wish people would stop comparing the two.

Ok they may have had different aims, but the aim of simplifying their sound and becoming more rocky is not one that I enjoy. On its own I think the album is awful, sorry if I made it look like I only think its bad because TRITSIO is so good, that would be unfair.

Kalmah, the earlier the better in my opinion although it's all quality.



Agreed.

Fair enough. I personally love SotS, and the positive points that Olympic Sharpshooter brings up in his review sums it up for me (though I don't agree with the negatives). I pretty much despise most melodeath other than it. And so you don't think I hate TRITSIO, I love it as well and happen to think its a classic of early swedish dm.

One man's paradise is another's living hell, to each his own

Yeah thats cool, many of my friends really love it and I just don't, as you said, one mans paradise! I probably need to invest in more At the Gates, seeing as I only have the debut, GoG (also the mighty Grotesque!) and SotS, which as I said I was disappointed by. Would any of the other albums be worth my time and money dya reckon?

Unanimated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ohO-i73bzc

Personally, I don't like the 2 albums in between SotS and TRITSIO. Both were transition albums, and pretty bad ones. Lack of musical coherency in both of them. But I'd still reccomend you check them out, to understand how the band evolved. And besides, both albums have 2-3 awesome tracks. Just my opinion though, the general opinion on the two albums is probably different

Check out Beyond the Graves by the German band Violation. Melodic, catchy and heavy as fuck.

Check out Like An Everflowing Stream by Dismember.

Yeah, Terminal Spirit Disease is right up there for me with regards to class. Listen to the sound and the lyrics (in particular), you'll find it to be the deepest and most depressed At the Gates album. It proves that they have that dimension to them. I recommend that both of you should give it another/a chance.

Good luck with that. While you're at it, try to stop people from comparing Kill 'Em All to The Black Album and Morbid Tales to Cold Lake.

I have Dismember
1995 Massive Killing Capacity
1997 - Death Metal
Both are Melodic yet DEATH metal.

Enter My Silence are enjoyable, but a pure In Flames rip off (Whoracle era)
Insomnium are more original (second album is brilliant)
God Dethroned I listened "The Layer of White Worm", it is not bad.
In Flames - this is an overrated group, only "Jesters Race" is the one I can listen from beginning to end (well, and "Subterranean" )
Thanks I will check out Vehemence, and The Absence
I liked Black Dahlia Murder "Unhollowed", but disliked Darkest Hour "The Mark of Judas"
I have Mors Principal Est, and Kalmah, and find it enjoable. And I agree that "Black Waltz" is the most death metal oriented one from Kalmah.

I agree with the user who said that "Slaughter of The Soul"
is worse then older At The Gates. I loved the tempo changes, and insanity of the first ATG records, SotS is kind of generic, compared to older material.

Excellent song! Thanks bro! Reminded me of Gates of Ishtar, and Dissection!!

They took a more blackened approach on their latest album, if that sounds appealing in any way I definitely recommend In The Light Of Darkness.

Soilwork's first 3 (maybe 4, depending on who you ask) albums are pretty much what you're looking for. After that they kind of went the way of modern In Flames.

You have a great list listed.
Tried Dimension Zero?

I would consider Kalmah under melodic death metal.
How about Mercenary and Scar Symmetry? Something different with amazing clean vocals.

Nobody has mentioned Nightrage? http://www.myspace.com/nightrage Tomas Lindberg from At the Gates used to be in this band.

Also check out the band In Thy Dreams http://www.myspace.com/inthydreams

About melodic era of Carcass I personally prefer the album Heartwork

I also remember that the first album of Ebony Tears and also Night in Gales were in the melodic death metal field, they were not agressive bands at all and their music wasnt really fast, but who knows, perhaps you'll like them. The first album of Gardenian had an In Flames feel, but later albums of the band turned less agressive too.

I'm going to go ahead and recommend some of Finland's must hear death metal albums:

Amorphis - The Karelian Isthums. Crushing with a great sense of melody.

Demigod - Slumber of Sullen Eyes. Haven't listened to this one in a while, but similar to the above.

Deadlock?

I also second Unanimated. Amazing band.

Unanimated! How could i forget! They've just released their 3rd album! Check it out...

That's how I feel as well

Anyway I made a list of what I listen to that maybe be what you like, maybe not.. oh well.

Thats a pretty good list. A lot of awesome bands!

Seconded Kalmah. Great band. I don't wanna reccomend any album in particular as everybody seems to have different favourites, but probably stay away from "for the revolution" at first.

Also try:

Callenish Circle- Melodic death metal with thrashy influences. Try "flesh power dominion" or "my passion your pain".

Arsis- A bit of a techy wankfest for some people, but I like.

Death- Later stuff. Sound of Perserverance especially.

Epoch of unlight

Fragments of unbecoming

In mourning

SKYFIRE- Love this band so much. Try their later stuff.


Im a massive fan of this genre, so I will look at some of the reccs in this thread myself =). What annoys me about the metalcore-influenced style is mostly the vocals.

Lame

Early 90's metalcore is very different than what is considered metalcore now. Earth Crisis, Starkweather, Deadguy, etc all sound nothing like Unearth and As I Lay Dying. Metalcore around that time was more of an equal fusion between metal and hardcore rather than Slaughter of the Soul with breakdowns.

Uggggh that Deadlock band is full of metalcore influence. I really did not like them.

With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness is an amazing album (until "Architects"), it showcases the more melodic ATG, while keeping the chaotic, slightly technical and progressive edge that TRITSIO had. Songs like Beyond Good and Evil, Raped by the Light of Christ and Primal Breath are excellent. As far as TSD goes, to be honest, I don't like it all that much. The first couple songs as well as Forever Blind are alright, but the song structers here are much simpler, and as a result the songs just aren't that interesting anymore. The Fevered Circle is fucking terrible aswell, and the instrumental is boring and cliched. You can tell they really went for a more commercial style here. Not bad, but not great either, in my opinion.

I second this recommendation. Dismember and Entombed are two of the best Swedish death metal bands in this style. Both are melodic but brutal at the same time. I recommend you look into Entombed's early work, particularly Left Hand Path and Clandestine; in other words, the albums released before their stylistic change...