[Ikelmonster]

Bcasey - check out Dark Tranquility's first album, the gallery - it is great. Also I would have to agree with previous comment that gothenberg type metal is dying, its become quite a bore to listen to.
Quote:

this saddens me dearly as gothenburg metal is and will stay one of my all time favorite genres of metal. regardless i still have faith in the genre. i agree that scar symmetry's last 2 albums weren't that good but their first 3 were amazing. even there last album was well regarded. dark tranquility is decent though i have only heard the album fiction. though i never did like soilwork. i hope gothenburg metal can pull through this one and become great again.
 
 

 

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

I just Youtubed one of their songs.  It was going great until some guy got on and started growling incoherently.  I think that is what lost me as metal progressed, the lose of anything like melodic vocals to the angry growling style.  It just puts me off. 

If you're completely unfamiliar with them, all harsh vocals can seem jarring and generally unpleasant at first. It's a bit of an acquired taste. My girlfriend has long since stopped making "rraaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwrrr!!!!!!!!" jokes, although she'll never be a metal fan (she did listen to Dragonforce for awhile though). Can't win em all. Once you start getting accustomed to harsh vocals, you can differentiate who's good and who isn't. It might not seem like it, but there's a real talent required to being a good harsh metal vocalist, and a lot of people just don't have it.
 
Guys like Mikael Åkerfeldt and Dan Swanö are exceptional harsh vocalists, and perhaps coincidentally, are also excellent with clean vocals. Even if you absolutely can't stand harsh vocals at all, there are still plenty of bands using the classic, Iron Maiden style "heavy metal" vocals. I've never been able to get past the somewhat cheesy aspect of this style, but obviously plenty of people like it.
 
Bands like Megadeth are outliers, but I'm not sure that's a new phenomenon. It seems like harsh vocals are in everything, but that's really because death metal is at least a part of so much of modern metal. If you listen to styles where death is really not involved (symphonic, some gothic, power, some progressive, etc.) you'll find very melodic vocals.
 

 

[DaveBSC]

 
Quote:

this saddens me dearly as gothenburg metal is and will stay one of my all time favorite genres of metal. regardless i still have faith in the genre. i agree that scar symmetry's last 2 albums weren't that good but their first 3 were amazing. even there last album was well regarded. dark tranquility is decent though i have only heard the album fiction. though i never did like soilwork. i hope gothenburg metal can pull through this one and become great again.

I know what you mean. My first exposure to metal outside of Megadeth and Slayer were albums like Wages Of Sin and Anthems Of Rebellion, Projector and Haven, Jester Race and Whoracle, and Chainheart Machine and Natural Born Chaos. I'll always love these albums, but the bands behind them need to pay attention to what bands like In Mourning, Be'lakor, Evemaster, and Omnium Gatherum are doing. The "dumb it down and sell more tickets" alternative leads to crap like Degradead.

 

[Trogdor]

Quote:

 

I know what you mean. My first exposure to metal outside of Megadeth and Slayer were albums like Wages Of Sin and Anthems Of Rebellion, Projector and Haven, Jester Race and Whoracle, and Chainheart Machine and Natural Born Chaos. I'll always love these albums, but the bands behind them need to pay attention to what bands like In Mourning, Be'lakor, Evemaster, and Omnium Gatherum are doing. The "dumb it down and sell more tickets" alternative leads to crap like Degradead.

 
Agreed. 
 
I know the new In Flames album is a softy but its not utter garbage as some are making it to be (stare down Soup's).  There are some actual decent tunes on it. 
 
But its true, Gothenburg metal is dying, albeit slowly.  I thought Soilwork's Panic Broadcast is a solid effort and definitely in the right direction so who knows,  maybe we will see a resurgence.
 
To add to Dave's superb list: 
 
Insomnium, Agalloch, and Katatonia
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

 
Agreed. 
 
I know the new In Flames album is a softy but its not utter garbage as some are making it to be (stare down Soup's).  There are some actual decent tunes on it. 
 
But its true, Gothenburg metal is dying, albeit slowly.  I thought Soilwork's Panic Broadcast is a solid effort and definitely in the right direction so who knows,  maybe we will see a resurgence.
 
To add to Dave's superb list: 
 
Insomnium, Agalloch, and Katatonia
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

i hope by gothenburg you don't mean melodic death metal in general because there is tons of good melo death today.

 

[BLACKENEDPLAGUE]

Quote:

i hope by gothenburg you don't mean melodic death metal in general because there is tons of good melo death today.

Show me some, because I can't find any

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

Show me some, because I can't find any

sunless rise

 
aropolis

 
theres 2 examples right there.
 

 

[Trogdor]

Quote:

i hope by gothenburg you don't mean melodic death metal in general because there is tons of good melo death today.

No there is tons of great MeloDeath out there (Dave listed a bunch, Soup's can list some more, and I gave you three fantastic bands).
 
We are just talking about Gothenburg.
 
And by the way, I am going to say it first (which I *know* is going to cause folks to rant at me):
 
At the Gates are completely over rated.  They might have been there very early on and I give them credit for it.
 
But I'll take old In Flames and Dark Tranq any day of the week over At The Gates...
 
More goodness:
 
Disarmonia Mundi's Fragments of a D-Generation
Soilwork's Natural Born Chaos
 

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

I know the new In Flames album is a softy but its not utter garbage as some are making it to be (stare down Soup's).  There are some actual decent tunes on it. 
 
But its true, Gothenburg metal is dying, albeit slowly.  I thought Soilwork's Panic Broadcast is a solid effort and definitely in the right direction so who knows,  maybe we will see a resurgence.
 
To add to Dave's superb list: 
 
Insomnium, Agalloch, and Katatonia

 
Eh.... I finally gave it a listen and I think it's pretty much garbage. It's not atrocious (they aren't Morbid Angel after all), but it's just trite mainstream crap. The intros to songs like All For Me and The Attic would've led to good songs if this was Colony era In Flames, but it isn't, and they don't. Also, What is Jester's Door? And Liberation is about as metal as Filter is, the difference being Filter still puts out good songs. There are perhaps a couple of tolerable songs on here, the rest is just bad. 4/10.
 
I think if Soilwork had done another Sworn To A Great Divide, they would've been finished. Wichers saved them from disaster, but really only brought them back to the level of Stabbing The Drama which is not exactly a Soilwork highlight. I am hopeful though that there's going to be more improvement.
 
Katatonia is really not melodic death at all, even when they were using harsh vocals, they were more of a death doom band. Now they are much more on the gothic side, and the death elements are basically gone.
 
 

 

[Redcarmoose]

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

sunless rise
aropolis
 
theres 2 examples right there.
 

And sommo'
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[SoupRKnowva]

Quote:

i think its going to end up my favorite metal record of the year, its been in my car for like 5 days straight now, and i cant get enough.
 
And trogdor ill have to check out Disarmonia Mundi, cause they did a bunch of the songs on the Imaginary Flying Machines cd, that i actually like quite bit.
 

 

[Vikingatheart]

 

 
Not quite as good as Insomnium, but still great melo death! This album has gotten dozens of listens at this point and its still causing uncontrollable head banging. Not with my headphones on of course, that only happens when I'm using my speakers 

 

[Redcarmoose]

 

[BLACKENEDPLAGUE]