Hello Metal Archives!

Just making a general thread here about Melodic Death Metal. Weirdly enough, I discovered this genre through Babymetal, a band that isn’t even melodeath but had made a melodeath style song in their album, this lead me to looking at other melodic death bands which then lead me to the ever-lasting awesomeness of Slaughter of the Soul, which pretty much sold me to dive deep into the melodeath genre. I tend to enjoy both the aggressive and the power metalish sides of melodeath, but lean to the thrashy side more. Acoustic elements and clean singing done well in the right places are a great plus for me, and I have a distate for melodeath that's played too slow besides a few outliers (e.g. Insomnium)

The artists I enjoy listening to are:
Amon Amarth
Anterior
Arch Enemy
Arghoslent
At the Gates
Brother Von Doom
Carcass
Children of Bodom
Disarmonia Mundi
Gates of Ishtar
Harasai
In Flames
Kalmah
Light This City
Mors Principium Est
Nekrogoblikon
Skyfire
Soilwork
The Haunted
Woe of Tyrants

Feel free to talk about any of your melodeath experiences!

Hey! This is my favorite genre, so let me make some suggestions:

Inferi
Slechtvalk
A Hill to Die Upon
Ne Obliviscaris
Meadows End
Thy Bleeding Skies
Sacrificium
Decadawn
Nightrage
Noumena
Zero Degree
Parasite Inc.
Disarmonia Mundi

Hope this is a good list, sift through and let me know what you like. I can recommend more based off of that.

If we are just going to list bands without any further discussion (which Corey did attempt in his OP), this thread will be closed swiftly. Let's get some discourse going, people.

Okay, Parasite Inc. is pretty good Arch Enemy worship, was nice to see them mentioned from the newer crop of bands.

Already have Disarmonia Mundi xD, but thanks man, I'll check em out soon!



Alright, here's a toss up for a direct discussion:


Melodic Death Metal is a broad term that deviates from standard death metal so much that most death metal fans don't consider it a genre of death metal. It's usually catagorised as a form of power metal or has a thrashy/metalcorish sound. I think Carcass's "Heartwork" title track and many songs from Slaughter of the Soul is what Aggressive-type melodeath should be; a punishing verse riff, a chorus that complements the verses, and a short, sweet solo somewhere in the song all together in less than 5 minutes (There are some outliers though).

What kind of songs do you think most melodeath, aggresive or power metal-ish, should be?

Just popping in to say I haven't heard anything from A Hill to Die Upon that would justify mentioning them as a melodeath band. And a few other points.

Anyhow. When I think about my experiences with melodeath, I can't help but be all nostalgic. My earliest introduction to more extreme variants of metal was marked by In Flames and Dark Tranquility (curiously, I first got into Skydancer and The Gallery, whereas with IF it was Colony that got to me first). I still have a blast when spinning choice cuts from IF's middle era (who can deny the awesome catchiness of "Embody the Invisible"), and DT always remained almost the sole regular melodeath band in regular playlists. They're pretty much good across the board, no matter the stylistic shifts. And not to mention they have the privilege of having an awesome, charismatic frontman, which is crucial for live performances (the first bigger show I went to, apart from Iron Maiden, was a combined Kreator and DT one which is still one of the better ones I've ever seen). Not to mention a solid singing voice.


Since then, I first got into Amon Amarth and older Arch Enemy. I think that Once Sent from the Golden Hall is still the best the former put out (with diminishing returns from Versus the World onwards) as it has real grit and power which is achieved only rarely in melodeath. I also prefer the unsophisticated, brabaric grunts/shouts by Hegg on that album in relation to his later work, even if he developed into a respectable growler only later. I also enjoyed Soilwork (and still think they did much better with that shift to modern rock or what have you than IF)

I can't say I still enjoy many melodeath bands; the charm of the sub-genre has faded to a good extent. A good deal of it now sounds like an unnecessary combination of harsh vocals and power metal with an edge, with some exceptions, which comes across as whimpy, weak, and worst of all completely generic and uninspiring.

Kalmah, for instance. Consistently good (but Swamplord will probalbly remain my favorite; I'm such a sucker for nostalgia induced evaluation obviously) and fairly fiery. Another relatively newer band I dig is Omnium Gatherum. They simply have a sense for uncanny melody which does wonders for me. Wolfheart I'd recommend as well (actually, Saukkonen's somber and melancholic, yet forceful melodeath is really captivating).

I can still take a step back and appreciate melodeath, both bands that I used to listen to and some newer stuff, but one thing that irks me is the forced inclusion of stereotypical melodeath "harsh" vocals. Not really a death grunt, but more of a pseudo-exhaled raspy sorta thing that just gets so tiring. Maybe because I have so much experience with the subgenre, nowadays I try to look for bands at least attempting to mix it up a bit, with clean vocals and the like.

I think Amon Amarth's best album is The Avenger; the songwriting is compact and virile. Omnium Gatherum is indeed great, they have a very unique atmosphere and are on a very consistent streak for going on three albums now.

I don't like the Gothenburgy style at all, it's just weak music with terrible vocals and no real incentive to listen to it - it always comes off as pensive and atmospheric but in a dull way that doesn't really seem to aim for any one particular mood except faux-deep philosophical ramblings. In Flames in particular are a band whose appeal completely escapes me. Terrible, almost completely valueless music, and even their better old stuff like The Jester Race, I never thought was that amazing personally.

Carcass's Heartwork is fucking great though. Monster riffs, great grooves and the vocals are solid too even. Vehemence is a great band, and their album God Was Created is very well done and interesting melodic death, mostly due to the unhinged, insane lyrics and the completely savage, beastly guitars and vocals. Intestine Baalism is another good melodeath band. Heavy and chunky at times, shining and neoclassical at others - very cool, individual sound. Arsis's debut packs some great riffs and songs, and comes off like what the Gothenburg sound was trying to do, but just better to me.

If more melodeath sounded like Dismember's The God That Never Was with maybe cleaner production or something, I'd probably be right on board.

Right now, I'd say that the value of mid era In Flames (Whoracle to Clayman) lies almost exclusively in infectious, catchy leads which feed off of the overall energy of the performance. Power metal in fact, nothing less and nothing more as far as I'm concerned (the track I mentioned, "Embody the Invisible" is a perfect example). Apart from that, there isn't anything particularly interesting or intricate about those tunes, as far as I'm concerned. The nostalgia thing is also something to count on (I really can't bypass IF as an integral part of my own personal history with metal, even though that doesn't delve into the value of the music at all).

I knew I left some band out. Indeed, Vehemence is excellent.

Them and like half the other bands the guy mentioned. Just cause it's melodic and heavy don't make it melo death...




Wha? I don't even know how to respond to this.




SotS is like the least aggressive melo death album ever made.


As far as the genre goes, I like it just fine and it was a huge gateway for me into straight up death metal and black metal. I took me a while to get into the harsher/more extreme genres of metal and thru the melodic bands I got to experience slowly and grow accustomed to their abrasiveness. I still really enjoy the genre though it does suffer from loads of shitty and stale bands these days.

I too would be happier if melodic death metal never decided they needed their own form of weak-ass quasi-harsh croaking. There's no reason a real death-type vocal can't fit with a more melodic riff, as Amon Amarth and latter Carcass prove.

Yeah I mean I certainly respect peoples' opinions and don't care if people like it. I didn't like Whoracle and the albums after it, I couldn't even make it through one or two songs without turning off. Then again I just listen to a shitload of power metal and can be kind of picky about melodic metal genres because of that...

The curious thing is that my experience with those IF albums preceded any with power metal in general (simultaneous introduction to Morbid Angel/Cannibal Corpse/Deicide and In Flames/Dark Tranquility, with just bits of Sabbath and a good dose of Maiden to accompany it; so IF got forever stuck in my head ) so it might be that your experience is the crucial factor making a difference.

Anyway, this thread makes me think how formative listening experiences are a tricky, tricky thing.

As a specific example, most of the melodeath i've heard sounds like downtuned (and sometimes, not even downtuned) power metal, specifically the european-esque type (e.g. Children of Bodom, Kalmah, Skyfire).

OR

It has a thrash influence (and what others I've heard say, sounds like metalcore) with a weird combination of power metal riffs sometimes (e.g. Woe of Tyrants, The Haunted, Skeletonwitch)




I disagree here, unless you're referring to early-style melodic death like Eucharist or "The Red In The Sky Is Ours" from At the Gates. Judging from the early Gothenburg style sound, I feel SotS is one of the more aggressive melodeath under "The Chainheart Machine" from Soilwork. I'd compare DT's "The Gallery" to it, but I feel that album has more of a different style than SotS, TCH, or The Jester Race.

Yup, a lot of people in their late teens and 20s do/did start out with death and black, and their introduction to more melodic metal is filtered purely through IF and other melodeath acts, like they're going backwards in an almost linear way.

Lol dude I have no idea how you found Brother Von Doom. I didn't think a single other person knew about that band. They are a FANTASTIC melodic deathcore band.

I actually got recc'd it in an irc (#metal of Snoonet). I was looking more for melodeath rather than deathcore, but that doesn't change the fact that this band kicked some major ass. I wish they made more works.

Found this a couple hours ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2lniRPe-ic

Melodeath is my favorite genre too, since albums like Something Wild, They Will Return and Whoracle have a place in my top 10 albums of all time. I also love stuff like Gates of Ishtar, The Moaning or Unanimated, but unfortunally there aren't many new bands playing this specific style. There are so many great, new bands playing OSDM, woudn't be nice a melodeath revival scene? Maybe in a near future...

Wow. Practically a lawsuit in the making And a piss poor song to go along with it.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with melodeath revival; I always thought there's tons of new bands taking cues from ATG/In Flames (). Admittedly I lost interest in closely following the scene so I can't say for sure.

Yes there's a ton of bands similar to ATG and IF, but not many playing melodic death/black like the ones that I mentioned. The only one that comes to mind right now is Thulcandra, that is more black than death...

Try some Allegaeon, Black Crown Initiate, Rivers of Nihil, and Arsis. These are three of my personal favorites. You might also try Darkest Hour and Dark Tranquillity.

thing with melodeath is that there are/were really only a handful (at most) of good bands doing it - early in flames, at the gates, early amon amarth - and the second you go beyond them you're in shithouse territory; it either becomes unlistenable a la that YT link posted above, too american and bro-dudey with flat-brimmed caps and neck tattoos, or is really just death metal with a hint enough of those melodies that people chuck the "melodic" tag on as a challenge to in flames fans (why it would bother anyone to that point is beyond me, but y'all are out there).

i'd really love to hear something that pretty much rips off the jester race the way gruesome rips off leprosy, but there's no such thing. it's all missing this crucial element i can't quite describe.

How about:

I understand not liking "Whoracle" mostly because of the songwriting, I enjoy the album but mostly because it's catchy headbanging fun. I understand even more not liking "Clayman", even as a big fan of old In Flames a lot of stuff on that album I find rather unappealing and leaning more towards alt-metal, I do like it but it's by far the worst.

However, you might want to give "Colony" another shot, it's a really great album and a lot of fun, filled with super cool riffs and catchy choruses and such. Of course I might just be biased because it's one of the first "real" metal albums I ever heard (I had a weird development - started out on grunge, got into metalcore/nu metal/emo for a bit, then got into death/black metal, before going back and discovering King Diamond, Dio, Blind Guardian, Judas Priest, ), but it still effects me to this day even after discovering all this ultra-underground Finnish old school death metal and whatnot.

I think my favorite melodic death metal band is Desultory, with the album "Bitterness", it's just super depressing and dark death metal, doesn't sound a lot like the other melodic death metal bands. I'm also a sucker for really catchy, hook-driven stuff like Amon Amarth, and it helps they have super great vocals too. It says a lot when you can get L.G. Petrov to guest on one of your songs and outshine HIM .

Metalcore is a further bastardization of death metal. First you take power metal and mash it with death metal and get melo death. Then you take melo death and either mash it with a bunch of hardcore elements or you just water it down to radio rock and you get metalcore. In no world (that I want to live in anyways) does adding thrash to death metal = metalcore. In no shape or form does a band like Ares Kingdom sound like Killswitch Engage.




Yeah The Gallery has a different feel, it's more oriented towards death metal. But that doesn't mean you can just cherry pick albums and bands when making claims.

After I posted that, I remembered I did hear all of Colony. It was a struggle to make it to the end though, as I found it a very tame, blandly written album with yet more weak vocals and more middling, unoffensive melodies that weren't moody enough to be atmospheric and weren't heavy or rocking enough to get the blood pumping. Not my thing I guess.

But the thing is thrash isn't being added to death metal, it's being added to (modern) melodic death. I personally haven't listened to much metalcore, but that's what I've seen most people relate it to.



I don't separate The Gallery because I want to cherry pick albums to match my claims, but I seperate them because they represent different forms of melodeath that I believe would be unethical to compare.

A prime example would be AtG's "Slaughter of the Soul" and "The Red In The Sky Is Ours". Both are aggresive-styled albums of the same genre, but one follow standard song structure unlike most death metal while the other abandons standard song structure for dissonance to experiment with unique concepts akin to death metal. To compare one to the other by aggresiveness would be unethical because the styles are too unsimilar to be compared in that matter. It'd be like comparing hardcore punk and death metal in "aggresiveness"

I cant begin to fathom how true this is. Melodic death metal is something I hold dear to me but it does seem that the genre is trying to find its own identity through this so called "weak-ass quasi-harsh croaking".

Bands like Be'lakor or Insomnium are a prime example deep vocals going hand in hand with medolic riffs.

There are exceptions though Obscurity - "Naglfar" is one of the best songs I have ever heard.

I also agree with this. Colony started out with some nice songs, but as you got to the core of the album the riffs got quite boring. It took me 2 listens to realize I don't really enjoy Colony

I'm not generally a huge fan of melodic death metal (or death metal at all for that matter) but there's a few examples of it I can really appreciate. The band Be'lakor have some absolutely god-tier riffs, and the way the lyrics and vocals tie into the music always makes their songs sound like the quasi-religious retelling of some kind of revered mythology.

re categorization as melodeath: I'm saying all this both as a 15 year old with limited experience of metal, and as a decided outsider to the death metal genre, so possibly take it with a truckload of salt, but it seems to me like pretty much everything with harsh vocals and melodic riffs gets called melodeath. Ensiferum, Inferi, and Opeth all have very little in common other than those things, but all pretty regularly get categorized as, or at least labelled as melodeath.

I guess I'm pretty firmly sitting in the "Gothenburg melodeath does nothing for me at all" camp. I do like really early At the Gates (plus they had one of the coolest logos in metal, which counts for something certainly!) and stuff like Desultory and Unanimated rules, but for modern shiny melodeath I much prefer Amon Amarth and depressing Finnish stuff like Slumber and Insomnium. The more "standard" stuff just seems to ride this line between blood-pumping aggression and sort of melancholic stuff that averages out to "bleh." Gotta be one or the other with this genre for me.

A bittersweet addition to this thread is that MyGrain just broke up

They were one of my favorites.

Their self-titled album is still one of best melodeath albums I've listened to. Their last album was a little weak in comparison, but I was excited to see what they'd do next. Came as a bit of a surprise that they'd broken up, actually.

Darkest fucking Hour.

They took what Sweden had to offer and completely made it their own. I haven't found anything quite like them. The riffs on Deliver Us especially have their own feel.

Dimension Zero is another band that should get a little more recognition. The band includes Af Grav (ex Marduk) and Jesper (ex In Flames). The harmonized guitars and leads from In Flames are there but the whole thing is more death metal based.

And I still think that if Reinkaos had been put out by any other band people would love it. Definitely not the Dissection we all knew and loved but the more straight forward songwriting coupled with Jon's ear for melody resulted in a killer record.

You are all missing out on some classics
anything from this band's earlier discography is great. I think they got even more melodic in later albums except not really the newest one.



Last 3 albums by these guys also, too bad they have nothing in the last 8 years.

A Canorous Quintet put this album out in 1996 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Asy-uMEu1A. I love this band, also from Sweden, but I don't see anyone mention them ever. Fits well within the realm of straight up death growls like some of you have mentioned there isn't enough of.

Also overlooked is the continuation a ACQ, This Ending.

Damn, that sucks. Here I was thinking that they were working on new music, but after I looked through their facebook I realized I have been pretty behind with them.

Sums it up for me too. Heartwork and Intestine Baalism are the pinnacles of melodic death for me and most of the Gothenburg stuff I just find boring. I like At The Gates but not as much as most people seem to do. Soilwork's Chainheart Machine got a lot of plays from me when I was younger but I seem to have outgrown that album as well. Dimension Zero and The Forsaken are other bands I guess I enjoy but never as much as others. And that's literally ALL the melodic death I can stomach, I generally don't like the style.

Yeah I was waiting a long time for them to release their new album (I think I found their 2008 album in like 2010) but they ended up breaking up.

Someone else mentioned Insomnium and I'd have to agree up until a point. Their 3rd album, Above the Weeping World, is one of my favourite discs. It swings from sounding melancholic to upbeat without being jarring and it has some excellent songs on there. 2nd album is something special as well.

The two albums after that one weren't a patch on it. I've yet to listen to the latest one.