At this point, I think that the only way to "evolve" into the melodeath scene is to not do melodeath anymore. I don't think that there's any room for a change of improvement. It's been a long time and there are way too many bands. The fact that, when the bands want to "evolve" they move away from the genre, could be in favour of my point.
I think that what makes melodeath albums feel 'evolved' or really unique, like the classic IF albums, are the other subgenres that still have influence in the music there. For TJR, it's Scandinavian folk- The opening notes of Moonshield reflect that perfectly- along with heavy metal in the vein of Iron Maiden, which is probably the most obvious thing I could say on this forum. For Whoracle, it's actually groove metal to me, particularly with the rhythm guitars. The album, particularly in its slower moments, is far heavier than TJR, and while there's no wild solos like in "December Flower", the album is overall, is focused on that heaviness and crushing feeling, much like Come Clarity. For Colony, it pretty much just resides with progressive songwriting, with "Ordinary Story" having so many elements and twists (In spite of being so accessible), "Zombie Inc." have its short, but phenomenal interlude, "Pallar Anders Visa" having a split acoustic and string section. It's a much faster album too, with its heavier songs ("Embody the Invisible", "Coerced Coexistence") having a more thrash feel than a groove feel. For Clayman... I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, in all honesty.
In a way for me, THE specifically solely doing Gothenburg melodeath is unique enough for me in this day and age due to the quality of the record. It's done really well, even if everything but "Gateways" is straightforward. That being said, I
really hope the next album is much more progressive than this one. It was nice to just see them having fun with what they've known and done, but I want to see them really experiment or throw a few curveballs at us next time.
I didn't listen to the album yet but I'll review it for sure.
I read some comments and someone mentioned a song was similar to OFTW (sorry to person who said it and Jesper for not remembering names
). Did
@eochaid get angry cause he was very angry when State of Slow Decay was similar to ATG song
Or is it fine when Jesper and his crew does it.
Oh cmon man how is that not really noticeable. After the solo same electronics come like it was in OFTW and boom that lead. BTW you can totally hear OFTW with the closing acoustics.
I think that'd be me, I pointed out the melody of it in the chorus as well, at least. I think it's much more acceptable that THE has an OFTW melody, since it that melody was written by Jesper for his own band (At the time) to begin with anyways. It feels more like a cheeky, yet warm callback, rather than a blatant ripoff of something that just wasn't yours to begin with (I guess in comparison to SoSD with "Blinded By Fear"). There was also the melody of "Closure" by Cyhra in "Gateways"' 'solo'(?) with the guitars that the synth plays over. For me, I like those little callbacks. I dunno, that's just me.