You should check out any At the Gates track from their classic Slaughter of The Soul album. They were pioneers for this genre. And to see where melodeath is nowadays, check out Insomnium's newer songs from Heart Like a Grave album. I regard Imsomnium as one of the best melodeath bands of all time and it would be sad if they weren't included in this genre week.
You should check out this band's whole album "Ritual" if you want more of them! Very thematic, tons of orchestral arrangements and compositions and a real sense of cohesion running throughout. But with that being said pretty much everything they make is gold, so, lol
This is a band that has passed under my radar, I've heard of them but never actually sat down to listen to them. I really dug this song so I'll give them a chance! interesting mix of subgenres here, a little bit of melodeath, metalcore, traditional death metal, black metal...very nice!
I would say in order of albums, nocturnal, ritual, deflorate, ever black, verminous, abysmal, night bringers, miasma, unhallowed imo would be the rankings
@@masterduda013 Whattttt? Unhallowed dead last?? Man, that is one of the all time best metal albums for me. Single handedly got me into the genre. And is probably in the top 5 first albums a band has put out.
@@robertgarside3827 I listened to them a lot in my teens and then kind of fell out of listening after Ritual. Picked them up again about a year ago and Everblack is such a damn good album.
Also I wanna say in regards to the momentum of the track like you mentioned with the combination of drive with the pulsing of a waltz, I feel like the "gallop" that occurs between the pulses in the main riff of the song gives it a very cool tripping feeling. Like you mentioned the song being sort of "dragged forward" rather than "wanting to go forward", I feel like the tripping effect of the gallop gives it a very determined, "war" esque sort of momentum like a soldier trudging forward through a battlefield, so it ties in with the theme really well in that regard. Like forcing yourself to move forward with such a degree of staggered energy that you're constantly tripping over your own feet, as it keeps driving itself to build back up to the burst of downward energy with the pulse.
I'd say their most melo death songs imo would be moonlight equilibrium or deathmask divine, obviously that's super objective to me and I absolutely love this band so it's hard for to bring it down to those two
Not the song I would introduce this band with. They're probably in my top 3 bands, and I would have suggested "what a horrible night to have a curse", "receipt", or "threat level no.3"
So glad you finally listened to TBDM. You should also check of Deathmask Devine by them as well. As far as another melodeath/techdeath band to check out I'd say Enfold Darkness- Our Cursed Rapture
This week has some kind of odd picks, I really like TBDM and this song but I was hoping you'd get a chance to check out the melodeath classics. Dark Tranquillity are a pioneering band of the genre but the song picked was a newer one that strays from their usual sound. I think a song from their album The Gallery would've been a better representation of them. I'm also seeing a lot of people mentioning "At The Gates - Slaughter Of The Soul" in the comments and if you're ever thinking of doing a bonus video, that would be a great song to do. Pioneering band, pioneering song, it's basically the blueprint of melodeath. But while I didn't consider Death melodeath at all, I do consider The Black Dahlia Muder melodeath. They have all the core elements of a melodeath band but they also incorporate stuff from other genres, like black metal. It seems like melodeath is a lot like metalcore, a confusing genre that branches out into all sorts of different sounds but if you go back to the roots you can see that all those sounds originated from the same place.
I agree with not needing to further differentiate within the melodic death metal subgenre personally. Some MDM bands go out of their way to compose songs around melodies and others just add little touches of melody in spots. I am no music major, but In Flames and Arch Enemy seem to go out of their way to compose songs around melodies much more often than others like The Black Dahlia Murder and At the Gates, who usually create songs around rythyms.
Definitely an outlier in their discography. They’re normally playing in tempos in the 200s and using lots of melody. Since you’re on melodic death metal this week, Deathless on your special selections list is in that style
I do not consider this melodic death. The black dahlia murder is more of a death metal band that happens to have melodic parts. The real hallmark of what true melodic death metal is & where it originated was the Gothenburg scene from the early to mid 90's. Bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, Arch Enemy, At the Gates. Then there are the bands that came a little later I believe like Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, Be'lakor. The band Death isn't really considered a melodic death metal band either, they are more of a progressive death metal band. Melodic death metal never really had many clean vocals in the early days, it was more about merging the sounds of traditional British heavy metal like Iron Maiden with heavier death metal bands. There are a TON of melodic death you could check out, you could take a month on it easily. Lots of good bands to check out.
Fully support more melodic death metal on this channel. I think it’s especially good as a gateway into more extreme styles of metal. Kinda have to get your feet wet with Insomnium and At the Gates before you hop into Ulcerate and Gorguts and stuff like that
You definitely are far more on track for the theme with this selection (perhaps)🤘 This band is definitely responsible for the second wave of "Melodic Death" from the "Swedish School" of Death Metal... They have absolutely in my opinion have helped upheld the legacy of this style.... Albeit This might not be the best example of their full talents and arrangements... Thus... They have really and truly refined their art by their later material ☝️ This band literally has not put out a bad song and had only got more progressive than one could gauge fully by this track... Great analysis as always 👌 BTW 👍 I personally would consider This Band (not based solely on this track however) as "Melodic technically DEATH METAL" more evidently apparently in their body of work as a whole.... For even the difference between say 🤔 Dismember, Early Entombed, Asphyx, and more "Gritty Swedish Death Metal" likened to bands like GRAVE and even Flesh Crawl.... Whilst a band like At The Gates was kinda the ellipses between when Swedish Death Metal and more technical chops and arrangements for... Omg... Nevermind I tapping out on this... This could be a thesis paper my friend... 🙄 .... "Mellow Death and Doom Elements"... Good grief we will be here all week.... Early Paradise Lost... My Dying Bride... NOW☝️ BLOOD BATH is however the perfect example of "Throw back Swedish School of Death Metal" Which BTW is fronted vocally by mostly the singer from Opeth... Again... Be here all month brother 👌🙄🤔🤣🤣🤣🤣 "Swedish Death Metal" roots of straight forward "Melodic Death Metal" Lends itself to why this theme is so difficult to define amongst your listeners 👌👍🙏
Thank you so much for this review. I warborn was always my Favorit song of tbdm but it's pretty much under the radar of every other tbdm fan. I never knew why I felt so drown towards this song but your Walzer explanation might be it. Can anyone suggest songs with a similar structure?
they seem decent, have heard they aren't too serious and i saw they did a live stream during covid where singer was wearing a pink bunny suit, not the most expected metal clothing. and "what an horrible night" is a castlevania reference. but somehow i never really tried them much.
i'd love for you to check out more black dahlia murder. One my top 2 bands, and not many people react to their shit. All their albums have amazing songs. Maybe you can check out deathmask divine next, it's off the same album!
BDM is one band I missed when I was exploring melodeath, so this is new to me. Unfortunately, much like metalcore I got burnt out on melodeath so while this is new to me it isn't all that fresh. It sounds pretty typical and not much struck me as really original or memorable. One thing I did appreciate, which you also noted, was the versatility of the vocals, which is definitely appreciated when it comes to harsh vocals to break up the monotony of not having a variety of pitches. I will say this seems towards the death-y end of melodeath. A lot of the techniques like the deep growls and tremolo picking would fit in well with early DM.
One reason I do think the "death metal with melody" VS "melodeath" distinction is important is merely because the latter came out Gothenburg, Sweden (so similar to Grunge it was very regional) and had a singular influence on what would become metalcore. I don't think stylistically there's a major division between the two, and plenty of bands were no doubt influenced both by the Gothenburg bands and by the earlier "death metal with melody" bands. You also have modern bands that have continued on that melodeath tradition without having gone metalcore, like Persefone.
Newer Black Dahlia Murder might be more dynamic. Maybe check out Carbonized in Cruciform or Kings of the Nightworld. All albums after Nocturnal have better lead guitar.
In regards to the band seemingly unintentionally creating something pretty novel, I guess some ideas can only be found because people are falling backwards into them... Oh, and in my opinion, in music as in all art, the artist's intentionality does not matter if it clashes with an interpretation of the work. I am not so post-modernist that I would proclaim that artist is dead, but there can be a lot of merit to be gained by disregarding the artist when looking at a work of art. PS:As I am avid listener of European(mostly Swedish) Melodic Death Metal(MDM), if wikipedia did not have it labelled as MDM, then I would've totally figured it to be just some death metal or maybe deathcore/metalcore mix band... Now that the song is over and I cannot remember melody, only the rhythm, whereas songs from old In Flames, At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, Children of Bodom, Arch Enemy have a better blend of melody with the extreme sound of death metal.
Yup, it's rather tragic. The Discord has been quite a bit caught off guard and upset about it. I saw Capra and Cryptodira's Twitter accounts reflecting on the dude as well.
Doesn't come off as very "melodic" to me. I mean, where's the melody? (except for the solo - which tends to be melodic in any "genre"...) Do kinda like the groove and rythm though. Good song all in all.
If they are using 6/6 timing then it's quite the esoteric, experimental song since I have no idea what that would sound like. The 6 on the bottom denotes that the sixth note gets the beat but, at least in western music notation, we don't have a sixth note. What I'm hearing is groupings of 3 which could be written as triplets in 4/4, quarter notes in 3/4, or eighth notes in 6/8. Now you'll notice that 6 and 8 are multiples of 3 and 4. That means that, most of the time, you can achieve the exact same music using either one meter -- the main difference will be what's written on the sheet music, primarily dealing with the length of notes and the tempo. What I'm getting at is that I assume you meant 6/8 which is, in effect, no different from the 3/4 that I said that I heard.
@@CriticalReactions Whoops! My bad. Yes, I meant 6/8. No easier example than this part of a different song from the same album: czcams.com/video/jwbj2gzzTpk/video.html Listening to downbeat notes of the left guitar, you can easily count 1 2 3 4 5 6 before the bar changes. I only point it out because some metal bands I've played in get get confused when you say 3/4 but then your riff stretches out twice as long. Which, yeah, is effectively the same thing unless your looking at sheet music, but it's usually the drummers who are asking this and not the guitarists...and definitely not the vocalist, lol.
13:45 Trevor used to say BDM was all about the guitars and that he "was just there" doing his vocals. Very humble guy, may him rest in peace.
You should check out any At the Gates track from their classic Slaughter of The Soul album. They were pioneers for this genre. And to see where melodeath is nowadays, check out Insomnium's newer songs from Heart Like a Grave album. I regard Imsomnium as one of the best melodeath bands of all time and it would be sad if they weren't included in this genre week.
Good suggestion
You should check out this band's whole album "Ritual" if you want more of them! Very thematic, tons of orchestral arrangements and compositions and a real sense of cohesion running throughout. But with that being said pretty much everything they make is gold, so, lol
I had the privilege of seeing them play this whole album live. One of the best concerts I've ever been to, won't ever forget it
If your doing melodeth Be'lakor- countless skies is a must.
This is a band that has passed under my radar, I've heard of them but never actually sat down to listen to them. I really dug this song so I'll give them a chance! interesting mix of subgenres here, a little bit of melodeath, metalcore, traditional death metal, black metal...very nice!
They don't have a bad album as far as I'm concerned but Everblack and Nocturnal are the best.
@@robertgarside3827 thanks man, I'll start with those!
I would say in order of albums, nocturnal, ritual, deflorate, ever black, verminous, abysmal, night bringers, miasma, unhallowed imo would be the rankings
@@masterduda013 Whattttt? Unhallowed dead last?? Man, that is one of the all time best metal albums for me. Single handedly got me into the genre. And is probably in the top 5 first albums a band has put out.
@@robertgarside3827 I listened to them a lot in my teens and then kind of fell out of listening after Ritual. Picked them up again about a year ago and Everblack is such a damn good album.
Also I wanna say in regards to the momentum of the track like you mentioned with the combination of drive with the pulsing of a waltz, I feel like the "gallop" that occurs between the pulses in the main riff of the song gives it a very cool tripping feeling. Like you mentioned the song being sort of "dragged forward" rather than "wanting to go forward", I feel like the tripping effect of the gallop gives it a very determined, "war" esque sort of momentum like a soldier trudging forward through a battlefield, so it ties in with the theme really well in that regard. Like forcing yourself to move forward with such a degree of staggered energy that you're constantly tripping over your own feet, as it keeps driving itself to build back up to the burst of downward energy with the pulse.
You should review "To A Breathless Oblivion" from this same record, by far my favorite and the best song on the album.
Yessss
Probably some of the most macabre lyrics Trevor has ever pulled out as well.
Fuck yeah. TBDM best album. A classic.
Miasma > everything else.
@@codexnecro miasma definitely gets slept on
Nah, Ritual followed by Deflorate.
I'd say their most melo death songs imo would be moonlight equilibrium or deathmask divine, obviously that's super objective to me and I absolutely love this band so it's hard for to bring it down to those two
Not the song I would introduce this band with. They're probably in my top 3 bands, and I would have suggested "what a horrible night to have a curse", "receipt", or "threat level no.3"
So glad you finally listened to TBDM. You should also check of Deathmask Devine by them as well. As far as another melodeath/techdeath band to check out I'd say Enfold Darkness- Our Cursed Rapture
This week has some kind of odd picks, I really like TBDM and this song but I was hoping you'd get a chance to check out the melodeath classics. Dark Tranquillity are a pioneering band of the genre but the song picked was a newer one that strays from their usual sound. I think a song from their album The Gallery would've been a better representation of them. I'm also seeing a lot of people mentioning "At The Gates - Slaughter Of The Soul" in the comments and if you're ever thinking of doing a bonus video, that would be a great song to do. Pioneering band, pioneering song, it's basically the blueprint of melodeath.
But while I didn't consider Death melodeath at all, I do consider The Black Dahlia Muder melodeath. They have all the core elements of a melodeath band but they also incorporate stuff from other genres, like black metal. It seems like melodeath is a lot like metalcore, a confusing genre that branches out into all sorts of different sounds but if you go back to the roots you can see that all those sounds originated from the same place.
Metalcore sounds like melodic death metal because metalcore is a fusion of melo death and beatdown hardcore
I agree with not needing to further differentiate within the melodic death metal subgenre personally. Some MDM bands go out of their way to compose songs around melodies and others just add little touches of melody in spots. I am no music major, but In Flames and Arch Enemy seem to go out of their way to compose songs around melodies much more often than others like The Black Dahlia Murder and At the Gates, who usually create songs around rythyms.
Subgenres are more like tags than absolute catagories.
Definitely an outlier in their discography. They’re normally playing in tempos in the 200s and using lots of melody.
Since you’re on melodic death metal this week, Deathless on your special selections list is in that style
Listen to all TBDM albums.
Rest in Power Trevor 🤘🏻
you spoke over the short super melodic part while talking 2:58-3:16 most melodic part of the sog my personal favorite
pure death chaos with a great pop arrangement ear. band rules.
The foot pattern during that solo gets me so fucking hard every time
I do not consider this melodic death. The black dahlia murder is more of a death metal band that happens to have melodic parts. The real hallmark of what true melodic death metal is & where it originated was the Gothenburg scene from the early to mid 90's. Bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, Arch Enemy, At the Gates. Then there are the bands that came a little later I believe like Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, Be'lakor. The band Death isn't really considered a melodic death metal band either, they are more of a progressive death metal band. Melodic death metal never really had many clean vocals in the early days, it was more about merging the sounds of traditional British heavy metal like Iron Maiden with heavier death metal bands. There are a TON of melodic death you could check out, you could take a month on it easily. Lots of good bands to check out.
Fully support more melodic death metal on this channel. I think it’s especially good as a gateway into more extreme styles of metal. Kinda have to get your feet wet with Insomnium and At the Gates before you hop into Ulcerate and Gorguts and stuff like that
2:58-3:16 most melodic , dopest part of this song
You definitely are far more on track for the theme with this selection (perhaps)🤘 This band is definitely responsible for the second wave of "Melodic Death" from the "Swedish School" of Death Metal... They have absolutely in my opinion have helped upheld the legacy of this style.... Albeit This might not be the best example of their full talents and arrangements... Thus...
They have really and truly refined their art by their later material ☝️
This band literally has not put out a bad song and had only got more progressive than one could gauge fully by this track...
Great analysis as always 👌 BTW 👍
I personally would consider This Band (not based solely on this track however) as "Melodic technically DEATH METAL" more evidently apparently in their body of work as a whole....
For even the difference between say 🤔 Dismember, Early Entombed, Asphyx, and more "Gritty Swedish Death Metal" likened to bands like GRAVE and even Flesh Crawl....
Whilst a band like At The Gates was kinda the ellipses between when Swedish Death Metal and more technical chops and arrangements for...
Omg... Nevermind I tapping out on this...
This could be a thesis paper my friend...
🙄
.... "Mellow Death and Doom Elements"...
Good grief we will be here all week....
Early Paradise Lost... My Dying Bride...
NOW☝️ BLOOD BATH is however the perfect example of "Throw back Swedish School of Death Metal"
Which BTW is fronted vocally by mostly the singer from Opeth...
Again... Be here all month brother 👌🙄🤔🤣🤣🤣🤣
"Swedish Death Metal" roots of straight forward "Melodic Death Metal"
Lends itself to why this theme is so difficult to define amongst your listeners 👌👍🙏
If you want a good waltz style song by them I'd check out the lonely deceased or dawn of rats by them as well
Probably not the song i would have gone with honestly, great song but i feel they last like 3 album are more " melodeath "
In Flames - Moonshield?!?!?
Thank you so much for this review. I warborn was always my Favorit song of tbdm but it's pretty much under the radar of every other tbdm fan. I never knew why I felt so drown towards this song but your Walzer explanation might be it.
Can anyone suggest songs with a similar structure?
they seem decent, have heard they aren't too serious
and i saw they did a live stream during covid where singer was wearing a pink bunny suit, not the most expected metal clothing.
and "what an horrible night" is a castlevania reference.
but somehow i never really tried them much.
i'd love for you to check out more black dahlia murder. One my top 2 bands, and not many people react to their shit. All their albums have amazing songs. Maybe you can check out deathmask divine next, it's off the same album!
Such an underrated track, boggles the mind how it wasnt a single
BDM is one band I missed when I was exploring melodeath, so this is new to me. Unfortunately, much like metalcore I got burnt out on melodeath so while this is new to me it isn't all that fresh. It sounds pretty typical and not much struck me as really original or memorable. One thing I did appreciate, which you also noted, was the versatility of the vocals, which is definitely appreciated when it comes to harsh vocals to break up the monotony of not having a variety of pitches. I will say this seems towards the death-y end of melodeath. A lot of the techniques like the deep growls and tremolo picking would fit in well with early DM.
One reason I do think the "death metal with melody" VS "melodeath" distinction is important is merely because the latter came out Gothenburg, Sweden (so similar to Grunge it was very regional) and had a singular influence on what would become metalcore. I don't think stylistically there's a major division between the two, and plenty of bands were no doubt influenced both by the Gothenburg bands and by the earlier "death metal with melody" bands. You also have modern bands that have continued on that melodeath tradition without having gone metalcore, like Persefone.
Newer Black Dahlia Murder might be more dynamic. Maybe check out Carbonized in Cruciform or Kings of the Nightworld. All albums after Nocturnal have better lead guitar.
In regards to the band seemingly unintentionally creating something pretty novel, I guess some ideas can only be found because people are falling backwards into them...
Oh, and in my opinion, in music as in all art, the artist's intentionality does not matter if it clashes with an interpretation of the work. I am not so post-modernist that I would proclaim that artist is dead, but there can be a lot of merit to be gained by disregarding the artist when looking at a work of art.
PS:As I am avid listener of European(mostly Swedish) Melodic Death Metal(MDM), if wikipedia did not have it labelled as MDM, then I would've totally figured it to be just some death metal or maybe deathcore/metalcore mix band... Now that the song is over and I cannot remember melody, only the rhythm, whereas songs from old In Flames, At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, Children of Bodom, Arch Enemy have a better blend of melody with the extreme sound of death metal.
Their vocalist tragically just passed
Yup, it's rather tragic. The Discord has been quite a bit caught off guard and upset about it. I saw Capra and Cryptodira's Twitter accounts reflecting on the dude as well.
Anything off of their night bringer album would have been a better example of melo death
If your doing melodic death metal check out carnosus-Lost To Funereal Desires
Have you checked out Babymetal, Road of Resistance. Best Japanese session musicians playing live.
My opinion.....more death with melodic elements. Seen them live with insomnium. That's a good example of melodic deathmetal
This sounded very '-core' to me. But Metal-Archives says they're melodeath, and they're never wrong!
Melocore? [edit: it kinda exists en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodic_metalcore]
Then you don't listen to much Metalcore...
Across their albums, I think their genre has shifted a bit. Many songs sounds really melodeath, many dont.
Doesn't come off as very "melodic" to me. I mean, where's the melody? (except for the solo - which tends to be melodic in any "genre"...)
Do kinda like the groove and rythm though. Good song all in all.
They surely have metalcore influences
6/6 timing, not 3/4. Most of their songs are 6/6, though they do have a few in 3/4 and even a few in 4/4.
If they are using 6/6 timing then it's quite the esoteric, experimental song since I have no idea what that would sound like. The 6 on the bottom denotes that the sixth note gets the beat but, at least in western music notation, we don't have a sixth note. What I'm hearing is groupings of 3 which could be written as triplets in 4/4, quarter notes in 3/4, or eighth notes in 6/8. Now you'll notice that 6 and 8 are multiples of 3 and 4. That means that, most of the time, you can achieve the exact same music using either one meter -- the main difference will be what's written on the sheet music, primarily dealing with the length of notes and the tempo. What I'm getting at is that I assume you meant 6/8 which is, in effect, no different from the 3/4 that I said that I heard.
@@CriticalReactions Whoops! My bad. Yes, I meant 6/8. No easier example than this part of a different song from the same album: czcams.com/video/jwbj2gzzTpk/video.html Listening to downbeat notes of the left guitar, you can easily count 1 2 3 4 5 6 before the bar changes. I only point it out because some metal bands I've played in get get confused when you say 3/4 but then your riff stretches out twice as long. Which, yeah, is effectively the same thing unless your looking at sheet music, but it's usually the drummers who are asking this and not the guitarists...and definitely not the vocalist, lol.
✌
Follower band, nothing special to me. Voice always sounded bad to me.
Same
Trevor Strnad is a highlight of the band imo
I think Trevor has one of the most dynamic voices in melodeath; many lead vocalists who came before and after have agreed.
@@ryanbennett1532 his clean vocals sound out of context to me
im still in actual tears trevor is gone, the vocalist, rip bro, goddammit
Melodeath is literally just a shorter way of saying melodic death metal, who actually thinks melodeath is a separate thing lol.