What The Melodic Death Metal Is About?

By Author: Deborah Smith
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The Death Metal musical style was the basis of what is now referred to as Melodeath or Melodic Death Metal. The form of this unique sub-style combines the harshness of the true heavy metal form and that of the British heavy metal called new wave. This started out as an underground movement in Gothenburg, Sweden early within the 1990s and became increasingly prevalent over the years until today.

Originally, the movement was true to the heavy metal sound complete with all the harsh lyrics, guitar playing and screaming vocals. Then it evolved thanks to the addition of keyboards and started to become more melodic using guitar riffs, and vocal solos. An occasional acoustic guitar could also be included by some bands. Soon thereafter, several bands became increasingly prevalent in the course of the Scandinavian countries and remainder of Europe like Dark Tranquility, At the Gates, In Flames and Grotesque which actually first started out within the late 80s and soon split up to form the more accepted bands of At the Gates and Liers in Wait. Dark Tranquillity is the longest standing band from original Gothenburg heavy metal ...
... scene and is considered as the real pioneers of this unique musical sub-genre.

Through the 1990s many bands started making improvements to the style by including more melodies . The lyrics of the style became increasingly different from those of heavy metal lyrics. The lyrics of heavy metal which largely focused on angst, violence and horrific blood and gore, the revolutionary lyrics were completely the opposite. No longer were there the expected screaming voices, the vocalists actually sang lyrics. More guitar riffs were included, the keyboard became more prominent as well as the choruses were introduced which greatly changed the entire style and made it different from heavy metal.

Soon, bands like Lost Eden, Blood Stain and Deadlock introduced a more recent sound called techno beat and trance beat which changed the whole sound again. These bands in time became often known as playing the new style called trance metal. Melodic death metal could have started out as a purely Scandinavian musical style but over the years its popularity gradually spread its wings to the rest of world. Bands like Universum can now be heard and seen coming from Australia where they have managed to mix the musical elements made popular by bands prevalent in America and in Europe.

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