I feel like you already made this video, but it’s nice to see it updated with some new stuff (thank you for mentioning my band AGAIN, and with the OG album cover with the stretched out logo lol!) On the subject of Purgatory Afterglow and EoS, I feel like The Spectral Sorrows is a better representation of EoS as a melodic death metal band because its a lot more consistently “death metal” but also still very melodic. Purgatory Afterglow has some really amazing melodeath songs like “Of Darksome Origin,” but then other parts of the album are musical brainfarts like “Black Tears” that hardly count as metal at all. I remember checking Purgatory Afterglow out after your first video and it turned me off of EoS entirely for years lol. Also nice to put Be’Lakor on here, I like them a lot. “Outlive the Hand” makes me almost cry often. Again it’s nice to see you make these videos.
Can we just take a moment to recognize that Dan Swano is THE most unrecognized dude in extreme metal history? Maybe Snorre from Thorns is the one who comes closest, but Swanos impact was massive and I bet if you went to a Blood Incantation show today, 99% of the crowd would be clueless.
Its the uplifting chord progressions. I listen to trance as well as metal and I get the same feelings from up tempo tech trance and uplifting trance that I get from melo death. This type of songwriting obviously has a huge presence in metalcore too especially the european side of Metalcore like Heaven Shall Burn type shit. alot of american metalcore from that period leans more towards hardcore punk and groove metal influence.
Andy Moor & Adam White - The Whiteroom Veracocha - Carte Blanche (Sneijder Remix) John O Callaghan - Stresstest (John Askew Remix) Armin Van Buuren - Communication Pt 3 Some of my favorites.@@lupvladimir3506
Melody adds character and nuance to music. Extreme music for extreme music’s sake is boring to me. It’s a mentality that has its place but also has a shelf life. Idk over the years I’ve grown as a listener and extreme music with the mentality to just sound heavy, doesn’t do it for me anymore. I love melodeath because it adds a new venue/platform to play around with. Apart from certain bands, plain ol Death Metal can be monotonous to me, it doesn’t satisfy me.
Melodic death metal and melodic black metal are my favorite genres especially the 90's era like Moonstruck (Sweden), Gates of Ishtar, Hypocrite, Everdawn, Crown of Thorns, God Dethroned, A Canorous Quintet, etc. Amon Amarth is still my favorite. I got into them in 1999 before they got real big. The first album is my favorite. Gates of ishtar maybe my 2nd favorite. My favorite album is The Dawn of Flames.
And the second song: da du ta da du ta da du ta Da du ta da du ta da du tu da du tu da du da du tu da du ta dauuuu lol Just making light fun but I love it too. 😂
I used to love the whole 90's approach to Melodic Death Metal, nowadays it's usually got such a pop style song structure..verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus. It can get tiring quickly Looking back at albums like The Gallery by Dark Tranquillity is was completely different and had more interesting and diverse song structures, that's what I miss
I hate to tell you Marksoreilly94, but remove the solo, and that is any old school deathmetal formula. Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death. If you gonna have a criticism of something at least put some actual effort into your argument, cause this one is weak as fuck. Be funny if everyone had the "formula" you want, you would be bitching about that lmao.
This makes death metal fans really sound like they have self confidence issues. Who cares what others think of your music? If you like it, that's all that matters.
Melodeath is one of my favourite styles of metal, so this was a great video of recommendations! Also, kudos to you for mentioning Edge of Sanity, who I would argue were probably the first Swedish melodeath band before In Flames, At the Gates, and Dark Tranquillity started (and possibly even influenced them as well). I would also argue that Death helped pioneered melodeath as well, since their later albums, especially Symbolic, were quite melodic compared to their earlier material.
I didn't like heartwork but i kept coming back to see if it will ever click for me and it did...7 months later and now it's my favorite melodeath album alongside Intestine Baalism albums all combined in the number two spot.
I love melodic death metal. Thanks for the list of bands to check out. This subgenre makes it a bit easier to get into extreme metal for beginners too.
no discussion of melodeath is complete w/o Vehemence - "God Was Created". an absolute classic and landmark of the genre that really has no equal. stunningly beautiful leadwork, amazing brutal riffs, great songwriting and to top it all off, some of the most disturbing and spine-chilling lyrics ever penned in death metal that puts most brutal/slam/goregrind to shame. easily the best example of the style to come out of the USA, at the very least.
The problem is that Gothenburg MDM became so mainstream that other styles got overshadowed and MDM is just a shorthand for "Gothenburg power metal with harsh vocals", and I would say the Gothenburg scene is a mistake and ruined MDM for DM fans So unless they took a progressive/technical direction (which is how i discovered EoS and subsequently Opeth), I usually just go for Japanese MDM for some mold-breaking bands like ICDD and Intestine Baalism
I love ICDD, been waiting for that new album for so long that when it finally came out this year I kinda... Didn't believe it? Like I guess I just thought I was in a daze and didn't even listen to it for several days lol
They didn’t really start out as Melodic Death Metal, but one the biggest (If not the biggest) Death Metal bands to make a huge change to their sound was Death in 1995 with Symbolic. In my opinion it’s one of their best albums, and it’s also one of their albums where I listen to almost of the tracks.
They're probably well known enough that they don't need mentioning here. But how do you make a Melo Death video and not talk about Insomnium? Glad to see Be'lakor get some love though.
I think it is just laziness of musicans (or their critics) with choosing names for new genres. Nuances are important for us metalheads. We like to split hair.
This is kinda random but if anyone hasn't heard of the melodeath band, "disarmonia mundi", I highly suggest it. They're the most underrated band and they're from Italy, but imo one of the best in the genre. Check out "perdition haze" "a taste of collapse" "flare" "celestial inferno" or "parting ways" by them to get started. I cant believe no one has heard of them.
@@alucard3317 mine is mindtricks, followed by the isolation game. Check out the song "the shape of things to come" and read the lyrics if you haven't heard it already. I just found it for the first time the other day and its now one of my favorites by them. Its super heavy in the verses and the lyrics are just badass, but has perfect clean melodic vocals for the chorus 👌
@@cliftonjames785 I’ll definitely check it out, I also have to say that I like Cold Inferno almost as much as The Isolation Game, but Mindtricks is amazing as well, my favorite song on that album is probably Nihilistic Overdrive
@@alucard3317 not gonna lie, I wasn't really into cold inferno. I did like coffin, magma diver, toys of acceleration, and loneliness of the long distance runner though. Nihilistic overdrive is a fantastic song. Id say my favorite though is either a taste of collapse, or parting ways. I think parting ways is one their most brutal songs, atleast lyrically speaking
@@cliftonjames785 Yeah parting ways is amazing, but it also makes me super happy, that you liked Coffin, and I have to admit Cold Inferno was a grower, I also was disappointed at first listen, but it grew on me, Creation Dirge is such a killer opener, I also really enjoy Stormghost, Oddities of the Ravishing Chasm, Clay of Hate and Behind Closed Doors, but Coffin is my favorite off of that album, even in my top 5 Disarmonia Mundi Songs which are (heavily biased because of The Isolation Game): in no order: Blacklight Rush, Nihilistic Overdrive, Structural Wound, Coffin, Perdition Haze ^^
I'm having some deja vu, you hit the nail on the head with all these picks. I've also compiled to what I believe the best MeloDeath out there. So please check it out anyone reading this.
I liked the playlist man, you got most of the bands that keep the essence of pure death metal in their sound (ps and nice surprise to see one of my uploads in there 😄)
Wyatt, you beautiful specimen. You're getting me to put so much great music on my spotify downloads. Looking forward to listening to some of these albums. Might even order a couple that aren't on the streaming service
Probably my favorite “flavor” I guess of death metal. Probably because I used to listen to a lot of NWOBHM a lot. Stuff like Stratovarius. Also, those last two albums could spawn a new genre, “Atmospheric Death Metal”, I mean, Black metal can be atmospheric, so why not. Ps, Arghoslent is pretty cool I guess..
I think we should drop the term "melodic" to name any genre. It literally means that something has a melody, the correct term for the diversity of melodies is "melodious".
TLDR: Wyatt if you like Intestine, give Imperial Circus Dead Decadence a listen and tell us your thoughts about them If you like Intestine Baalism and Followbane, then I 100% have to recommend Imperial Circus Dead Decadence to you. Basically put Intestine, Followbane and Dimmu Borgir into a blender and don't stop until you see only one singular colour. That colour would be ICDD's sound Personally I would recommend their 2nd and 3rd full lengths, and the EPs between those 2 albums Vermilion D Alice Syndrome is sort of a sister band to ICDD (same vocalist but no other members overlap with the project but instead it's a completely different person handling all the instruments), but instead of having a triumphant vibe in the last song in their albums, VDAS albums are just darker, grimmer and more gothic than ICDD. I would recommend Karasu but other albums are worth a listen
Purgatory Afterglow is definitely my favourite EoS. Cool video! Personally also love Schaliach’s Sonrise and anything Anata related for this sphere even if neither are particularly brutal or conventional.
HEY ! DONT THINK I DONT HEAR THAT GATES OF ISHTAR, PERPETUAL DAWN, from THE DAWN OF FLAMES IN THE BACKGROUND. Somebody god, please give Gates of Ishtar the popularity they deserve! They haven't got ONE bad song!
I love melodic and symphonic metal in general, I find it's a more challenging listen because you have to pay attention to the layers of detail when it's done well.
Yay melodic death metal, perhaps one of my favorite genres. Awesome album mentions and lots of fun reccomendations for me to check out. Speaking of bands sounding like At the Gates, Sein's album The Denial of Death was a very good example of the Slaughter of the Soul sound and I feel this is the closest of ever seen anyone nail the sound to a t and I have talked about it before in a blog on MA where I referred to it as Slaughter of the Soul 2.0. Definitely a great release imo
I would also add Scum (FIN). DAMN they're so overlooked in melodeath scene. They incorporate a very psychedelic and doomy sound within their aggression and melodic sound. Mother Nature has more aggressive tendencies but Purple Dreams and Magic Poems take one step further with the approach and make them sound so unique. Same goes Garden Of Shadows (their third album) as well which unfortunately was delayed due to label's lack of response but in 2016 their long lost album was finally released to the public.
I wonder if some of the hate it gets comes from calling it melodic DEATH metal to begin with. Honestly, a lot of it sounds more like power, melodic thrash, or even gothic metal to me musically, usually with more black metallish vocals. There's exceptions (some early Amon Amarth, Anata, Heartwork-era Carcass, Intestine Baalism on the songs that don't go full Gothenburg or OSDM) where I definitely think the name make sense, but with a band like Be'lakor, the only thing I really see in common is the vocals. Whether it's death metal or not has absolutely nothing to do with its quality, of course. It just feels like a lot of it has more in common with other styles of metal IMO.
I find the problem is with melodic death metal, is that it has boundaries . Theres not a huge amount you can do with it to make it sound to different from another melodic death metal band. I've albums by Ablaze My sorrow, In flames, Gates of Ishtar , Insomnium , and Blazing eternity. OK they're good albums, but would you need one more over the other ? Not really. If you go heavier, you're a brutal DM band or just a DM band. If you throw in hints of black metal., you're suddenly a Black/DM band. Go less death metal, you're a progressive rock or metal band. So its very pigeon holed.
Melodic death metal is ny favoutite genre of music. I like how diverse the genre is. Most of the bands mentioned were familiar, but not all.Some of my personal listening suggestions: Desultory Uncanny (These two are more death metal, but have the melodic element) Soilwork's first two for some heavier Gothenburg style Gates of Ishtar Bloodred hourglass Nailed to Obscurity Allegaeon for those into technical stuff
I have 3 recommendations most people have heard of that barely meet the definition : Anata - Conductor's Departure Inferi - Path Of Apotheosis Swallow the Sun - The Morning that Never Came
Oh, yeah, the welcoming apect of ATG and AA's first albums... what a joke. On another hand, Lunar Strain and Jester Race are melodic and welcoming as fuck but Subterranean isn't. Anyway, I don't think Slaughter of the Soul really influenced melodeath that much for it is almost proto-deathcore that never stops, without any highlighting of the melodies... like, never gonna buy that SotS inspired the last EP of Omnium... If you want simple, fun melodeath with catchy riffs then I suggest you check out The Fangs of the Southern Death by Wolfchant (I guarantee it's not the pagan metal they made later). Also, @Wyattxhim, with you loving french BM and all, you should try Walküre.
The genre never stuck with me. It's just not what I want out of my DM. I like it slow and cavemany, as in a continuation of the less fast paced of traditional Heavy Metal with or without becoming full on Death Doom. If I want melody I'll just play a Power Metal album, one that can fully focuss on that without having to tack on a bunch of DM shit on top.
I think Dark Tranquility‘s Skydancer is easily their worst album, The Gallery is way better, but the best imo are Damage Done, Character and Fiction, these albums are sooo mich better than Skydancer
So fuckin happy to see FollowBane get some recognition. Was scrolling the archives for more melodeath bands to listen to (as it is my personal favorite subgenre) and stumbled upon them. After listening to Dead Fantasia I was blown away. For anyone interested in that symphonic melodeath style, xGodx by Serpent is an amazing album that needs more recognition. They are also from Japan and that album quickly became one of my all time favorites. As well after they broke up some of the members formed Veiled in Scarlet, and that band is also great. There are a lot of shitty atg, in flames, and dt worship bands but the genre is so much more than that.
btw to clarify I don't hate atg, dt or in flames, I love all three, but there are a lot of bad copies of them out there which causes a lot of people to think mdm is just atg, dt, and in flames worship.
I'm showing my age here, but by '93, it seemed that death metal had worn out its welcome, so Heartwork was a breath of fresh air, and I got full-swing into the Gothenburg sound in '96, because it seemed so new and exciting. The feeling I got was that they were trying to recapture the classic rock/metal feel of their (also my own) childhood of the 80s, while making some arena-ready death metal. Mission accomplished! One important band you forgot to mention was Dissection, as they were huge in the scene. Also, Sacramentum, who were compared with Dissection but I think were actually better - I still play the "Finis Malorum" EP regularly today! Also Varathron and Rotting Christ from Greece (though they are more associated with black metal now), and Einjerar and Old Man's Child from Norway (on both of their debuts).
I didn't even know there was hate for melodic death metal tbh I'm always so out of the loop. It's like 99% of the death metal I listen to because I'm not terribly into the aggressive sounding stuff.
I mean, melodeath really helped me to get into death metal as a whole. I started to like death metal when i heard Carcass' Heartwork for the first time.
Played with this band once back in the day ruclips.net/video/DebL2QYL4vk/видео.html, melodic death metal but with a lot of blasts and somewhat of a 'tech-death' feel. Bands more rooted in DM tend to do melodic death metal better, imo. Thanks for the recs, and as always great channel.
Incredible video, definitely gonna have to listen to the bands you've mentioned. Also, I appreciate the disclaimer given for Arghoslent along with giving examples of similar bands that aren't racist. Melodeath is probably my favorite genre, and yeah that includes the At the Gates ripoff bands but I never did a deep dive into the more brutal sounding bands so I greatly appreciate this video.
I started with Melodic Death Metal with Amon Amarth just when Twilight of the Thundergod came out but I think checking everything from Arrival of the Thimble Winter to Surtur Rising would be an excellent way to open yourself to Melodic Death metal as well as bridge yourself into Folk Metal or even black metal if you liked the earlier works, on top of Johan Hegg;s vocals sounding more like a death metal Viking warrior compared to a lot of Melodic Death Metal vocalists who I feel are higher pitched like black metal or lower closer to what you might expect from death metal in general.
Melodic death metal is hated? Huh, I figured the folks who want pure death metal simply stick to that, though I guess that's metalheads in a nutshell 😅 Like the video man, never knew about DTs older days!
Yeah, Slaughter of the Soul was a disappointment for me when it came out, kinda similar to how I felt when I first heard Metallica's Black album. It isn't bad, but the band isn't the same without Alf Svennson
tbh i like sots. the riffs are really damn good, the vocals as well. the songwriting is a bit dumbed down but i like that they kept it simpler to let the riffs shine. it had some great guitar work. but yeah red in the sky is ours beats it easily lol.
Bullshit. MDM does not need any defence (black metal fan here). If one (who shits on MDM) cannot enjoy, for example, Insomnium, Kalmah or especially Be'lakor, then they pretty much do not enjoy metal at all, posers pretty much.
@@lashedandscorned You clearly have not listened to Aceoss the Dark and Winters Gate have you? If these albums are boring, however, sir, then please recomend me some of them "interesting" ones.
@@malkhaz.jokhadze I do have, actually. Also listened to In the Halls of Awaiting. Here's some MDM I find interesting: Sacrilege, A Canorous Quintet, Gates of Ishtar, Eucharist, Encumber, early Dark Tranquility, Night In Gales, Antares, Goldenpyre and Intestine Baalism.
Where does a band like Dissection fit in. With such a name, surely they were death metal. At least they started off that way. The early mischief would attest. However, on the cusp of that Norwegian black metal wave, similar to mayhem, the subject matter as well the dominant guitar technique started to shift to be more black metal aligned. Was the Swedish death camp always known to be somewhat more melodic? Dissection was certainly melodic and were certainly some kind of a blackened death metal, I think; but not typical of that Gothenburg sound (not until perhaps they too jumped on that bandwagon with reinkaos; but I haven't listened to that one very much).
I like a lot of melo death stuff, but the worst offenders are Amon Amarth and Arch Enemy i feel they only became popular because they had a gimmick people could latch onto. Amon Amarth had vikings (even though there's better viking themed bands) and Arch Enemy has a hot metal grrl on vocals (and again way better bands with female vocalists)
you know what's stupid? people who say this sucks cause they only limit themselves to raw black metal and stay true. They believe they are free, but really narrowminded fucks. I love black metal, but only certain bands, but I do like all kinds of music becuase if it's relevant to me, then why should I deny that music? If it's good in my ears, it's good in my ears regardless of what people say or what genre.
Is that a Depeche Mode shirt?! I loved Melo-death as a kid, got heavily into ATG and the Haunted when I was 15 (25 years ago), Soilwork and In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, and lesser known stuff like Gardenian and Darkane. Its a great genre with all kinds of incredible song writing. Sure it got trendy, that happens, but that whole scene ruled my younger metal years. Gates of Ishtar is a great example of how melodic death was blended with black, Dawn as well.
I feel like you already made this video, but it’s nice to see it updated with some new stuff (thank you for mentioning my band AGAIN, and with the OG album cover with the stretched out logo lol!) On the subject of Purgatory Afterglow and EoS, I feel like The Spectral Sorrows is a better representation of EoS as a melodic death metal band because its a lot more consistently “death metal” but also still very melodic. Purgatory Afterglow has some really amazing melodeath songs like “Of Darksome Origin,” but then other parts of the album are musical brainfarts like “Black Tears” that hardly count as metal at all. I remember checking Purgatory Afterglow out after your first video and it turned me off of EoS entirely for years lol. Also nice to put Be’Lakor on here, I like them a lot. “Outlive the Hand” makes me almost cry often. Again it’s nice to see you make these videos.
Can we just take a moment to recognize that Dan Swano is THE most unrecognized dude in extreme metal history? Maybe Snorre from Thorns is the one who comes closest, but Swanos impact was massive and I bet if you went to a Blood Incantation show today, 99% of the crowd would be clueless.
Damn I must've missed your band. What album did he show?
Edit: nvm I'm just a bit brain-dead. But what's the album in your pfp?
Wyatt, can you defend me from my crippling anxiety?
I don't understand why one of the most heartfelt, exciting, sincere genres needs to be defended. I swear melodeath cures depression
Its the uplifting chord progressions. I listen to trance as well as metal and I get the same feelings from up tempo tech trance and uplifting trance that I get from melo death. This type of songwriting obviously has a huge presence in metalcore too especially the european side of Metalcore like Heaven Shall Burn type shit. alot of american metalcore from that period leans more towards hardcore punk and groove metal influence.
Andy Moor & Adam White - The Whiteroom
Veracocha - Carte Blanche (Sneijder Remix)
John O Callaghan - Stresstest (John Askew Remix)
Armin Van Buuren - Communication Pt 3
Some of my favorites.@@lupvladimir3506
Melody adds character and nuance to music. Extreme music for extreme music’s sake is boring to me. It’s a mentality that has its place but also has a shelf life. Idk over the years I’ve grown as a listener and extreme music with the mentality to just sound heavy, doesn’t do it for me anymore. I love melodeath because it adds a new venue/platform to play around with. Apart from certain bands, plain ol Death Metal can be monotonous to me, it doesn’t satisfy me.
I love Intestine Baalism, such an underrated band. Great to know you like them
Melodic death metal and melodic black metal are my favorite genres especially the 90's era like Moonstruck (Sweden), Gates of Ishtar, Hypocrite, Everdawn, Crown of Thorns, God Dethroned, A Canorous Quintet, etc. Amon Amarth is still my favorite. I got into them in 1999 before they got real big. The first album is my favorite. Gates of ishtar maybe my 2nd favorite. My favorite album is The Dawn of Flames.
Gates of Ishtar is awesome! Underrated band
And the second song: da du ta da du ta da du ta Da du ta da du ta da du tu da du tu da du da du tu da du ta dauuuu lol
Just making light fun but I love it too. 😂
@@Devogor Abyssos i absolutely love that band. I never hear anyone talk about them.
Gates of Ishtar are awesome. All 3 albums are perfect. First album A bloodred path is a masterpiece
@@Devogor Yeah both good albums. I kinda like the first album a bit more but they're both really good.
I used to love the whole 90's approach to Melodic Death Metal, nowadays it's usually got such a pop style song structure..verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus. It can get tiring quickly
Looking back at albums like The Gallery by Dark Tranquillity is was completely different and had more interesting and diverse song structures, that's what I miss
Gallery is the definition of innovation, probably ghe best mdm album of all time
I hate to tell you Marksoreilly94, but remove the solo, and that is any old school deathmetal formula. Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death. If you gonna have a criticism of something at least put some actual effort into your argument, cause this one is weak as fuck. Be funny if everyone had the "formula" you want, you would be bitching about that lmao.
@@Devogor Belakor are an exception I'll give you that, the genre needs more innovative bands like them and less like Arch Enemy
I would also say Dechristianize by Vital Remains is a “brutal melodeath” album, still waiting for more of this by them
Agreed I'm glad you said that, super underrated band
The guitar work on the title track is just absolutely legendary.
Vital Remains at its best is melodic, the melody is what drew me to their sound in the first place
I fucking love that song
@Ezzgar I agree with Ezzgar on this one
This makes death metal fans really sound like they have self confidence issues.
Who cares what others think of your music? If you like it, that's all that matters.
Every Intestine Baalism album is great. My personal favorite is their second album, Banquet in the Darkness. But they are all amazing.
"welcoming riffs"
Ah yes, no one is as welcoming and inviting as Arghoslent.
Based
based
Basado
Melodeath is one of my favourite styles of metal, so this was a great video of recommendations! Also, kudos to you for mentioning Edge of Sanity, who I would argue were probably the first Swedish melodeath band before In Flames, At the Gates, and Dark Tranquillity started (and possibly even influenced them as well). I would also argue that Death helped pioneered melodeath as well, since their later albums, especially Symbolic, were quite melodic compared to their earlier material.
Finally someone said EOS was the first one doing melodeath
If I hear anybody hating the great Carcass I'm going to do something horrible
I didn't like heartwork but i kept coming back to see if it will ever click for me and it did...7 months later and now it's my favorite melodeath album alongside Intestine Baalism albums all combined in the number two spot.
My favourite melodeath band has to be insomnium. Some of the most awesome emotional melodic death metal ever. Absolutely wicked shit.
Jester Race will always be the GOAT for me
Anders' vocals are so much worse than Mikael's vocals though. The Gallery is better.
I can't agree more. 🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
I love melodic death metal. Thanks for the list of bands to check out. This subgenre makes it a bit easier to get into extreme metal for beginners too.
I find it funny that a death metal fan wears a Depeche Mode shirt
I find it funny that a Wyatt wears a Depeche Mode shirt
Garden of shadows - Oracle moon to me is the epitome of all atmospheric/melodic death metal.
Easily the 2nd best Melodic death metal album I've ever heard honestly
If I had never found Amon Amarth, I never would’ve gone down the rabbit hole. 🤷🏻♂️ I appreciate gateway music a lot.
Same
Death’s last three albums were melodic death metal so I basically have to like the subgenre
no discussion of melodeath is complete w/o Vehemence - "God Was Created". an absolute classic and landmark of the genre that really has no equal. stunningly beautiful leadwork, amazing brutal riffs, great songwriting and to top it all off, some of the most disturbing and spine-chilling lyrics ever penned in death metal that puts most brutal/slam/goregrind to shame. easily the best example of the style to come out of the USA, at the very least.
Inb4 Wyatt mentions Arghoslent for the 50th time.
guilty
The problem is that Gothenburg MDM became so mainstream that other styles got overshadowed and MDM is just a shorthand for "Gothenburg power metal with harsh vocals", and I would say the Gothenburg scene is a mistake and ruined MDM for DM fans
So unless they took a progressive/technical direction (which is how i discovered EoS and subsequently Opeth), I usually just go for Japanese MDM for some mold-breaking bands like ICDD and Intestine Baalism
I love ICDD, been waiting for that new album for so long that when it finally came out this year I kinda... Didn't believe it? Like I guess I just thought I was in a daze and didn't even listen to it for several days lol
only sots was a mistake early in flames and likes were good.
I can't follow you on that. Best I can do is accepting "powered death".
They didn’t really start out as Melodic Death Metal, but one the biggest (If not the biggest) Death Metal bands to make a huge change to their sound was Death in 1995 with Symbolic. In my opinion it’s one of their best albums, and it’s also one of their albums where I listen to almost of the tracks.
Three of my favorite melodeath albums from the naughty list are Soilwork "Natural Born Chaos", In Flames "Clayman" and Arch Enemy "Wages Of Sin".
Wow. Haven't heard Intestine Baalism in forever! So happy you mentioned them. Such a good band.
For anyone coming here - Eucharist's A Velvet Creation. Worth it entirely.
By any chance do you know the band Traumatic Voyage and their album Traumatized...? Definetely a hidden gem that deserves a entire video in itself
such a hidden gem
They're probably well known enough that they don't need mentioning here. But how do you make a Melo Death video and not talk about Insomnium? Glad to see Be'lakor get some love though.
Melodic death metal and melodic black metal are and will always be my favorite genre ....who care about genre dictators
I love japanese metal and it's great to have more to listen to, thanks!
Most melodic DM can sound just like Power Metal with Death vocals
followbane is so underrated its insane. Most of their albums are bangers.
it's*
@@serene0silence focus on the awkward language, stuttering and mispronouncing in the video, pal
Missing Gates of Ishtar, The Crown, Kronos, Vornagar, Eucharist and Arsis
I think it is just laziness of musicans (or their critics) with choosing names for new genres. Nuances are important for us metalheads. We like to split hair.
BeLakor and Insomnium are brilliant
I'm surprised you didn't mention dismember when you started name dropping OSDM bands going Melo-Death later on down the line.
I heard you qualifying "Be'lakor - Stone's Reach" as "elegant" and my first reaction was WTF. But after a listen I think I get what you meant
the lyrics for slaughter of the soul don't get enough praise
This is kinda random but if anyone hasn't heard of the melodeath band, "disarmonia mundi", I highly suggest it. They're the most underrated band and they're from Italy, but imo one of the best in the genre. Check out "perdition haze" "a taste of collapse" "flare" "celestial inferno" or "parting ways" by them to get started. I cant believe no one has heard of them.
The Isolation Game is My favorite Disarmonia Mundi Album, literally perfect
@@alucard3317 mine is mindtricks, followed by the isolation game. Check out the song "the shape of things to come" and read the lyrics if you haven't heard it already. I just found it for the first time the other day and its now one of my favorites by them. Its super heavy in the verses and the lyrics are just badass, but has perfect clean melodic vocals for the chorus 👌
@@cliftonjames785 I’ll definitely check it out, I also have to say that I like Cold Inferno almost as much as The Isolation Game, but Mindtricks is amazing as well, my favorite song on that album is probably Nihilistic Overdrive
@@alucard3317 not gonna lie, I wasn't really into cold inferno. I did like coffin, magma diver, toys of acceleration, and loneliness of the long distance runner though. Nihilistic overdrive is a fantastic song. Id say my favorite though is either a taste of collapse, or parting ways. I think parting ways is one their most brutal songs, atleast lyrically speaking
@@cliftonjames785 Yeah parting ways is amazing, but it also makes me super happy, that you liked Coffin, and I have to admit Cold Inferno was a grower, I also was disappointed at first listen, but it grew on me, Creation Dirge is such a killer opener, I also really enjoy Stormghost, Oddities of the Ravishing Chasm, Clay of Hate and Behind Closed Doors, but Coffin is my favorite off of that album, even in my top 5 Disarmonia Mundi Songs which are (heavily biased because of The Isolation Game): in no order: Blacklight Rush, Nihilistic Overdrive, Structural Wound, Coffin, Perdition Haze ^^
I'm having some deja vu, you hit the nail on the head with all these picks.
I've also compiled to what I believe the best MeloDeath out there.
So please check it out anyone reading this.
I liked the playlist man, you got most of the bands that keep the essence of pure death metal in their sound (ps and nice surprise to see one of my uploads in there 😄)
Nice playlist.
Also, even cooler NintendoCaprisun Playlist, that guy is my childhood (next to FamilyJules)
I absolutely love melodic death metal. Mainly cause I’m into Power Metal and Thrash Metal heavily.
Wyatt, you beautiful specimen. You're getting me to put so much great music on my spotify downloads. Looking forward to listening to some of these albums. Might even order a couple that aren't on the streaming service
Probably my favorite “flavor” I guess of death metal.
Probably because I used to listen to a lot of NWOBHM a lot. Stuff like Stratovarius.
Also, those last two albums could spawn a new genre, “Atmospheric Death Metal”, I mean, Black metal can be atmospheric, so why not.
Ps, Arghoslent is pretty cool I guess..
I think we should drop the term "melodic" to name any genre. It literally means that something has a melody, the correct term for the diversity of melodies is "melodious".
Love the Garden of Shadows and Be'Lakor mentions, two of my favorite melodeath releases are from them.
Wait. Dark Tranquillity was originally called SEPTIC BROILER? Thats the most brutal name ive ever heard! Whyd they change it?
I freaking love melodeath
May I recommend Broken Torso
TLDR: Wyatt if you like Intestine, give Imperial Circus Dead Decadence a listen and tell us your thoughts about them
If you like Intestine Baalism and Followbane, then I 100% have to recommend Imperial Circus Dead Decadence to you. Basically put Intestine, Followbane and Dimmu Borgir into a blender and don't stop until you see only one singular colour. That colour would be ICDD's sound
Personally I would recommend their 2nd and 3rd full lengths, and the EPs between those 2 albums
Vermilion D Alice Syndrome is sort of a sister band to ICDD (same vocalist but no other members overlap with the project but instead it's a completely different person handling all the instruments), but instead of having a triumphant vibe in the last song in their albums, VDAS albums are just darker, grimmer and more gothic than ICDD. I would recommend Karasu but other albums are worth a listen
Love this band just as much as i love Thousand Leaves, both great japan melodeath bands
Purgatory Afterglow is definitely my favourite EoS. Cool video! Personally also love Schaliach’s Sonrise and anything Anata related for this sphere even if neither are particularly brutal or conventional.
HEY ! DONT THINK I DONT HEAR THAT GATES OF ISHTAR, PERPETUAL DAWN, from THE DAWN OF FLAMES IN THE BACKGROUND. Somebody god, please give Gates of Ishtar the popularity they deserve! They haven't got ONE bad song!
I love melodic and symphonic metal in general, I find it's a more challenging listen because you have to pay attention to the layers of detail when it's done well.
Love the Depeche Mode Violator shirt! Great album!
Yay melodic death metal, perhaps one of my favorite genres. Awesome album mentions and lots of fun reccomendations for me to check out. Speaking of bands sounding like At the Gates, Sein's album The Denial of Death was a very good example of the Slaughter of the Soul sound and I feel this is the closest of ever seen anyone nail the sound to a t and I have talked about it before in a blog on MA where I referred to it as Slaughter of the Soul 2.0. Definitely a great release imo
As an already huge melodeath fan, this gave me so many good tips. Be'lakor really are awesome!
wyatt is so cute, does anyone else have a crush on him?
I would also add Scum (FIN). DAMN they're so overlooked in melodeath scene. They incorporate a very psychedelic and doomy sound within their aggression and melodic sound. Mother Nature has more aggressive tendencies but Purple Dreams and Magic Poems take one step further with the approach and make them sound so unique. Same goes Garden Of Shadows (their third album) as well which unfortunately was delayed due to label's lack of response but in 2016 their long lost album was finally released to the public.
I wonder if some of the hate it gets comes from calling it melodic DEATH metal to begin with.
Honestly, a lot of it sounds more like power, melodic thrash, or even gothic metal to me musically, usually with more black metallish vocals. There's exceptions (some early Amon Amarth, Anata, Heartwork-era Carcass, Intestine Baalism on the songs that don't go full Gothenburg or OSDM) where I definitely think the name make sense, but with a band like Be'lakor, the only thing I really see in common is the vocals.
Whether it's death metal or not has absolutely nothing to do with its quality, of course. It just feels like a lot of it has more in common with other styles of metal IMO.
The Black Waltz by Kalmah is one of my favorite metal albums of all time.
I find the problem is with melodic death metal, is that it has boundaries . Theres not a huge amount you can do with it to make it sound to different from another melodic death metal band. I've albums by Ablaze My sorrow, In flames, Gates of Ishtar , Insomnium , and Blazing eternity. OK they're good albums, but would you need one more over the other ? Not really.
If you go heavier, you're a brutal DM band or just a DM band. If you throw in hints of black metal., you're suddenly a Black/DM band. Go less death metal, you're a progressive rock or metal band. So its very pigeon holed.
Melodic death metal is ny favoutite genre of music. I like how diverse the genre is. Most of the bands mentioned were familiar, but not all.Some of my personal listening suggestions:
Desultory
Uncanny (These two are more death metal, but have the melodic element)
Soilwork's first two for some heavier Gothenburg style
Gates of Ishtar
Bloodred hourglass
Nailed to Obscurity
Allegaeon for those into technical stuff
I have 3 recommendations most people have heard of that barely meet the definition : Anata - Conductor's Departure
Inferi - Path Of Apotheosis
Swallow the Sun - The Morning that Never Came
Oh, yeah, the welcoming apect of ATG and AA's first albums... what a joke.
On another hand, Lunar Strain and Jester Race are melodic and welcoming as fuck but Subterranean isn't.
Anyway, I don't think Slaughter of the Soul really influenced melodeath that much for it is almost proto-deathcore that never stops, without any highlighting of the melodies... like, never gonna buy that SotS inspired the last EP of Omnium...
If you want simple, fun melodeath with catchy riffs then I suggest you check out The Fangs of the Southern Death by Wolfchant (I guarantee it's not the pagan metal they made later).
Also, @Wyattxhim, with you loving french BM and all, you should try Walküre.
The genre never stuck with me. It's just not what I want out of my DM. I like it slow and cavemany, as in a continuation of the less fast paced of traditional Heavy Metal with or without becoming full on Death Doom. If I want melody I'll just play a Power Metal album, one that can fully focuss on that without having to tack on a bunch of DM shit on top.
Kalmah is one of my favorites!
I think Dark Tranquility‘s Skydancer is easily their worst album, The Gallery is way better, but the best imo are Damage Done, Character and Fiction, these albums are sooo mich better than Skydancer
So fuckin happy to see FollowBane get some recognition. Was scrolling the archives for more melodeath bands to listen to (as it is my personal favorite subgenre) and stumbled upon them. After listening to Dead Fantasia I was blown away. For anyone interested in that symphonic melodeath style, xGodx by Serpent is an amazing album that needs more recognition. They are also from Japan and that album quickly became one of my all time favorites. As well after they broke up some of the members formed Veiled in Scarlet, and that band is also great. There are a lot of shitty atg, in flames, and dt worship bands but the genre is so much more than that.
btw to clarify I don't hate atg, dt or in flames, I love all three, but there are a lot of bad copies of them out there which causes a lot of people to think mdm is just atg, dt, and in flames worship.
I'm showing my age here, but by '93, it seemed that death metal had worn out its welcome, so Heartwork was a breath of fresh air, and I got full-swing into the Gothenburg sound in '96, because it seemed so new and exciting. The feeling I got was that they were trying to recapture the classic rock/metal feel of their (also my own) childhood of the 80s, while making some arena-ready death metal. Mission accomplished! One important band you forgot to mention was Dissection, as they were huge in the scene. Also, Sacramentum, who were compared with Dissection but I think were actually better - I still play the "Finis Malorum" EP regularly today! Also Varathron and Rotting Christ from Greece (though they are more associated with black metal now), and Einjerar and Old Man's Child from Norway (on both of their debuts).
Listen to bleeding profusely by Gorgasm, that is the only record i can think of that is 100% melodic brutal death
who even knows these bands💀☠️
I didn't even know there was hate for melodic death metal tbh I'm always so out of the loop. It's like 99% of the death metal I listen to because I'm not terribly into the aggressive sounding stuff.
I mean, melodeath really helped me to get into death metal as a whole. I started to like death metal when i heard Carcass' Heartwork for the first time.
Played with this band once back in the day ruclips.net/video/DebL2QYL4vk/видео.html,
melodic death metal but with a lot of blasts and somewhat of a 'tech-death' feel. Bands more rooted in DM tend to do melodic death metal better, imo.
Thanks for the recs, and as always great channel.
please defend me from existing
Would The Chasm count as melodic death metal? Or most likely a handful of their songs?
i love melodeath, it also got my friend into death metal (he's into power metal)
Incredible video, definitely gonna have to listen to the bands you've mentioned. Also, I appreciate the disclaimer given for Arghoslent along with giving examples of similar bands that aren't racist. Melodeath is probably my favorite genre, and yeah that includes the At the Gates ripoff bands but I never did a deep dive into the more brutal sounding bands so I greatly appreciate this video.
i actually enjoy melodic death metal more exactly because it's not as harsh as regular death metal, which hasn't really clicked with me yet :/
Hey man, can we ever get a full video of you singing/dancing to "Right Here In My Arms" like you did in the comfort jams video?
Babe wake up, Wyatt dropped another banger of a video
I started with Melodic Death Metal with Amon Amarth just when Twilight of the Thundergod came out but I think checking everything from Arrival of the Thimble Winter to Surtur Rising would be an excellent way to open yourself to Melodic Death metal as well as bridge yourself into Folk Metal or even black metal if you liked the earlier works, on top of Johan Hegg;s vocals sounding more like a death metal Viking warrior compared to a lot of Melodic Death Metal vocalists who I feel are higher pitched like black metal or lower closer to what you might expect from death metal in general.
Amon amarth is a bad starter for anyone trying to get into Melodic Death
Intestine Baalism! \^^/
death
You say that for every good melodeath band there are 10 bad ones. Do you really think other genres don't have that?
Okay but that doesn’t change what I’m saying/thinking about melodic death metal though
Melodic death metal is hated? Huh, I figured the folks who want pure death metal simply stick to that, though I guess that's metalheads in a nutshell 😅 Like the video man, never knew about DTs older days!
Vehemence - God Was Created
Jester Race will always be the GOAT for me
Yeah, Slaughter of the Soul was a disappointment for me when it came out, kinda similar to how I felt when I first heard Metallica's Black album. It isn't bad, but the band isn't the same without Alf Svennson
tbh i like sots. the riffs are really damn good, the vocals as well. the songwriting is a bit dumbed down but i like that they kept it simpler to let the riffs shine. it had some great guitar work. but yeah red in the sky is ours beats it easily lol.
I swear you cover the best bands, I find so much music via your channel. Another great video thanks bro keep up the good work.
Bullshit. MDM does not need any defence (black metal fan here). If one (who shits on MDM) cannot enjoy, for example, Insomnium, Kalmah or especially Be'lakor, then they pretty much do not enjoy metal at all, posers pretty much.
I love MDM, but bands like Insomnium are boring as fuck to me.
@@lashedandscorned You clearly have not listened to Aceoss the Dark and Winters Gate have you? If these albums are boring, however, sir, then please recomend me some of them "interesting" ones.
@@malkhaz.jokhadze I do have, actually. Also listened to In the Halls of Awaiting.
Here's some MDM I find interesting: Sacrilege, A Canorous Quintet, Gates of Ishtar, Eucharist, Encumber, early Dark Tranquility, Night In Gales, Antares, Goldenpyre and Intestine Baalism.
Where does a band like Dissection fit in. With such a name, surely they were death metal. At least they started off that way. The early mischief would attest. However, on the cusp of that Norwegian black metal wave, similar to mayhem, the subject matter as well the dominant guitar technique started to shift to be more black metal aligned.
Was the Swedish death camp always known to be somewhat more melodic? Dissection was certainly melodic and were certainly some kind of a blackened death metal, I think; but not typical of that Gothenburg sound (not until perhaps they too jumped on that bandwagon with reinkaos; but I haven't listened to that one very much).
Haha I had a fucking feeling you were playing Perpetual Dawn at the start. Best GOI song if you ask me.
I like a lot of melo death stuff, but the worst offenders are Amon Amarth and Arch Enemy i feel they only became popular because they had a gimmick people could latch onto. Amon Amarth had vikings (even though there's better viking themed bands) and Arch Enemy has a hot metal grrl on vocals (and again way better bands with female vocalists)
you know what's stupid? people who say this sucks cause they only limit themselves to raw black metal and stay true. They believe they are free, but really narrowminded fucks. I love black metal, but only certain bands, but I do like all kinds of music becuase if it's relevant to me, then why should I deny that music? If it's good in my ears, it's good in my ears regardless of what people say or what genre.
No one mentioning Eucharist? They are one of the pioneers from Sweden. Love their albums "A velvet creation" and "Mirrorworlds"
I love Purgatory Afterglow by Edge of Sanity. Thank you for mentioning that album, Wyatt.
my favourite "Slaughter of the Soul inspired" melodic death metal album is CENTINEX - HELLBRIGADE . great dark epic album.
Is that a Depeche Mode shirt?!
I loved Melo-death as a kid, got heavily into ATG and the Haunted when I was 15 (25 years ago), Soilwork and In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, and lesser known stuff like Gardenian and Darkane. Its a great genre with all kinds of incredible song writing. Sure it got trendy, that happens, but that whole scene ruled my younger metal years. Gates of Ishtar is a great example of how melodic death was blended with black, Dawn as well.
@wyattxhim you should check out In Thy Dreams - Highest Beauty. This album encapsulates every good aspect of melodic death metal.