He'd say this one, why else would he put a 5 on it?

Album Rating: 3.5

"What's wrong with that "new or memorable" mumbo jumbo everyone keeps spitting out? What did you expect, metalcore?"



This is exactly what i expected, but by playing it so safe with this record Torchbearer limits the impact this album could have. Melodeath bands putting out new material these days need to realize how stale the genre is getting.

well the bands don't know that as listeners they've got sputnik users who must've almost heard every melodeath album there is to hear

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

IMO Melodeath is getting stale only because it's overplayed. And it's overplayed because musicians notice more possibilities in it than in straight death or thrash metal (genres which by themselves have already gone stale a good few years ago).



That said, Torchbearer is technically a death/thrash/black metal hybrid, and it still gets classed as melodeath. It only shows how this genre builds up on all previous accomplishments of metal. But every metal genre will hit its apogee eventually.

I would say that because Melodeath is a more specific form of death metal that there are in fact less possibilities for it than the original genre it emerged from. Maybe it's because it's easy or maybe because it's honestly what sounds good to MD bands, but so many of them literally copy and paste the standard gothenburg style. You have bands like Eluveitie (to a small extent), Torchbearer, Intestinal Baalism who all are doing something to keep the genre alive, but the vast majority have actually abandoned the actual 'death metal' part of melodeath and are making cookie-cutter radio metal that's just a little heavier than bands like BFMV. Really, I think the best melodeath that has ever been released was released a long, long time ago; not because it was new then, but because back then, the musicians saw it as an opportunity to experiment. What happened to the thrash induced intensity of ATG? I don't know.

I would also disagree wholeheartedly that standard death metal is dying; the old school is coming back and making a reemergence. There are dead branches, like melodeath, brudeath, techdeath. Those genres are all being sucked dry of every last bit of originality, but death metal at its core is still very strong.

Album Rating: 3.5

that doesn't really address the issue xfing

like i could see a reasonable argument for this being a 4 but I don't see how anything justifies this being a perfect or classic record. your review doesn't read like you honestly think it's at that level either

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Essence, my point is that melodeath can be practically anything without core influences and with death metal vocals. Both acoustic and electronic elements are welcome. You can be progressive if you want, you can be formulaic if you want. Notice the difference between bands like Dark Tranquillity and Amon Amarth. Both are melodeath, but Amon Amarth feels like death metal only more melodic, and DT has more moody electronics, yet still is melodeath. Opeth is considered prog death but it's melodic as fuck too. If people think that melodeath is just what the Gothenburg pioneers brought about and any deviation makes it no longer melodeath, then no wonder why so many bands are painfully repetitive. Hell, even Strapping Young Lad feels like melodeath in some songs, just pointing that one out

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

@Ending:



For the starting album I recommend Warnaments, it's by far their most melodic and the easiest to listen to. After that it's your choice: Yersinia Pestis is dark and thrashy and Death Meditations feels kinda like a blend of these two with an emphasis on symphony.

as with every symphonic band except Nokturnal Mortum, the keyboards are massively holding this band
back

EDIT: Yeah, but then it's really pushing whether it's actually a genre. If melodeath is, LITERALLY,
any death metal with melody, then all death metal is melodeath because it's pretty fucking hard to
write music without melody. Melodeath has traditionally referred to a pretty specific style of death
metal, one that focuses specifically on melody, but even that is too general, because we run into
the same problem. When people say Melodeath, most people think the Gothenburg style and then
remember outliers like Carcass and Intestinal Baalism

(and SYL are NOT melodeath. it's impossible to give them a genre that matches everything but death
influenced thrash with industrial elements and a heaping dose of melody is like... almost covering
it)

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

You don't need to cite Carcass to give an "outlier", honestly. The Gothenburg sound is basically Iron Maiden/Death Metal. Take Judas Priest/Death Metal and you've already got something else, though clearly also melodic death metal. As I said before, many bands within the genre aren't really similar to the sound of the Gothenburg three, yet still get labeled as Gothenburg. Amon Amarth is a good bet, early Soilwork also had a somewhat different style. Scar Symmetry is a perfect example, even back on their first three albums (when sputnik considered them good), their riffing patterns were nothing like the classic Gothenburg bands'. Plus they use much more clean vocals than your average Gothenburg band. Why label them as such then?

Amon Amarth is a good bet

Gothenburg is no longer just being 'similar' to the Gothenburg three (and I don't think I've ever heard Amon Amarth referred to as Gothenburg, or Scar Symmetry for that matter). Incidentally, the contemporary definition of melodeath has been shifting more towards a soft/loud dynamic, as far as I'm concerned. This is because melodeath has essentially had sex with modern metalcore and the base genres are inheriting traits from each other. That ASIDE...

Scar Symmetry are a hyper melodic death metal band, as in, a band with a large amount of melody, larger than normal than 'standard' death metal. So, what else could we label them? Obviously, we are left to label them as melodic death metal.

What I'm trying to say is that it makes no sense to say that melodeath has more options than standard death metal because melodeath is a specifized form of death metal. That's like saying a specific type of painting has more creative possibilities than all of painting does. Whether this is because melodeath is stuck in generalizations (people instantly compare them to the big three) or because bands don't want to try diversify or use integrity, I don't know.

"What I'm trying to say is that it makes no sense to say that melodeath has more options than standard death metal because melodeath is a specifized form of death metal."

Basically this. Melodeath is a subgenre of death metal and thus cannot have more options than DM because everything under melodeath also falls under DM and then there's every other type of DM that isn't melodeath too.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Bands that do try to diversify are often labeled as prog death instead of melodeath, that's all. So are bands that blend thrash, black and death and throw in some melody. Most songs from Opeth are a fuckload melodic, I'd even say that some songs from Deicide (particularly from the Stench of Redemption) could qualify as melodic death metal. The biggest problem is that even bands that get unanimously labeled as melodic death metal most often get slandered for being unoriginal. In quite a few cases it is true, as there are some bands that sound almost exactly like others, but then those that stand out also get thrown into the box. Like Torchbearer.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

I don't think I've ever heard Amon Amarth referred to as part of the Gothenburg brand of melodic dm.



Well, people label anything that's heavy, from Sweden, remotely melodic and having death growls as Gothenburg. Blame them.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

BUMP this album is fucking priceless.

Album Rating: 3.0

I still don't know why or how you like this so much. I mean, it's decent and all but I'd never give it over a 3.5, personally. Just too standard sounding for me.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

You must have heard many more bands than me, because I don't see where's the "standard" here. In the black metallish riffing, in the wall-of-sound drumming, in the Spanish-like acoustic guitar leads? Naaah, this shit is fresh.

Album Rating: 3.0

Riffs sound like every decent band left in melodeath, I notice nothing new there; the bass-drum heavy drumming actually gets pretty annoying because the drummer almost never changes it up; the complete package sounds like basically every other decent melodic metal album out there. Just my opinion but that's how I view it.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Well fine, your opinion is valid. Myself, I don't care how similar this is to other albums. The melodies themselves are so good and work on me so hard that I really like this album. I'm a sucker for pretty melodies.