I’ve also included a few bands that sound very Finnish in this category. The Finnish style packįinland has been one of the most active producers of melodic death metal and the bands from there tend to have a distinct sound. If I listen to them today, it’s usually 1998 debut “The Haunted”, featuring Peter Dolving’s crazy aggressive vocals and stronger hardcore influence. I listened a lot to 2000’s “The Haunted Made Me Do It” and 2003’s “One Kill Wonder” in my gateway period. The Haunted’s discography is not the most solid, but the band did a lot to get people into melodic death metal in the early 2000’s. “Counting Our Scars”, one of the new albums, are one par with their classis releases, so it’s sad to see them go. The band also reformed and released two quality new era albums, before disbanding once more in 2017. “Bitterness” and “Into Eternity” are quality albums that should appeal to doom metal fans melodeath fans alike. The music is a depressing take on the early 90’s melodeath sound that was quite original at the time. The “Symbolic” album is the best place to start, but all of them are good, really.ĭesultory is a fairly well-known band in old school death metal circles, but they still remain an underrated act, considering the quality of their albums.
The first three Death albums are far from melodic, but their technical and progressive output from the 90’s is essential melodeath. Recommended album: Expanding Senses (2002)ĭarkane has played everything from death/thrash to synthetic high-tech metal, and most of it falls under the melodic death metal tag. “Burning Bridges” featuring slick guitar work and Johan Liiva’s unpolished vocal hooks is recommended. Recommended album: Burning Bridges (1999)īefore Arch Enemy turned into a plastic commercial metal machinery, they were one of the better bands to come out of the Gothenburg sound. I used to listen to them quite a lot around “Versus the World”, which is the album I still consider the best. I’ve never been that into Amon Amarth, but they’re simple too famous and too much of a gateway band to ignore in an article about this genre. Recommended album: Versus the World (2002) Others are still part of my listening routine 15 years later. Some of these are gateway bands that I don’t listen to myself anymore. The first bunch of melodeath bands are the oldschool ones bands that highly influenced the genre or just put out great albums early on. Old school melodic death metal essentials Bands: Desolator, Soliloquium, Ending Quest, Ashes of Life, Trees of Daymare, The Ashen Tree.Musician, songwriter, content creator, digital freelancer.
If you want more background on melodeath, please check out my full guide to the melodic death metal genre.