The Best of Swedish Death Metal

[Death Aflame]

Good list, but Necrophobic and Unanimated probably wouldn't make it in the top 10 for me. Yeah The Nocturnal Silence is good, but I've always found it to be a bit too pedestrian, this is true even moreso with Unanimated's second album. Consequently I would have Eucharist's A Velvet Creation replace either of those albums in my list.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

It is a very progressive album; with more riffs crammed into it than most people can handle as opposed to the more chorus-verse-chorus structure of SOTS. The songwriting is done by an entirely different artist, though "With Fear" was somewhat of a blend of the two, but still mostly written by Alf Svensson. By then his logo for the band was being changed against his will and he was being pushed around more and more as the other guys wanted to move towards a more straightforward form of songwriting. Consequently he left the band.

Explain? Impossible. It simply takes time. Just throw it in now and then and maybe in a few years it may really hit you.

SOTS is a decent thrashy album by (in my opinion) a less capable artist, and while I like it, I hardly listen to it anymore. I have been listening to the older work almost everyday for years.

What do you mean by a different artist?

 

[Blind Guardian]

^ I think he means Alf Svensson who wrote alot of the music himself

 

[CF87]

And also,the madman laughter in the same song is one of the coolest vocal performances ever.

Yeah. Nicke sounds like he just lost his mind and also sounds like a drunken pirate. Stranger Aeons e.p has Johnny Dordevic also credited as vocals and it was Nicke who recorded the vocals.

 

[Blind Guardian]

The vocalist on the "Crawl"-ep is a famous tv-personality in Sweden btw,he is a movie critic. Just a little curiosa.

 

[Slayed Necros]

Yeah, he was also the vocalist for Nirvana 2002.

 

[The Black Prince]

What do you mean by a different artist?

The dominant creative voice on Gardens of Grief and The Red in the Sky is Ours was Alf Svensson's, with Anders Björler being a decidedly secondary figure whose writing style imitated Svensson's. As the Brothers Björler began to assert more influence on the band's creative direction (which they wanted to take toward the mainstream with Pantera and 80s speed metal influences), Svensson packed his bags and went on his way, leaving Anders and Jonas free to make the boring commercial crap they so desperately desired to crank out.

 

[HaggardBastard]

Regarding At the Gates: I grew up listening to Slaughter of the Soul and that album basically taught me how to play and write metal. I don't listen to it much anymore for the same reason listed above: I've heard it a Brazilian times. However, I also like the rest of their stuff, but none of it had nearly as much of an impact on me as SOTS did.

Regarding Hypocrisy: These guys introduced me to death metal with Abducted, which is still one of my favorites. I've always been most partial to their mid-era material: The Fourth Dimension, the aforementioned Abducted, The Final Chapter, and the self-titled album. Osculum Obscenum and Penetralia are early favorites as well, but not a patch on the others I listed.

Regarding Entombed: I have dedicated my life's work to recapturing the guitar tone on Left Hand Path. It's funny, but the three bands I've seen people talking about here most recently all recorded the albums (SOTS, Abducted, Left Hand Path) that have the absolute best guitar tones I've ever heard. Regardless, that Entombed record is timeless, a drunken, punk-infused death metal battering ram of an album that no recent release I've heard has been able to top. It may not be the fastest or the most brutal, but the songcraft is top-notch.

 

[plaguewilder]

I like all that is listed here. It's great to see Unleashed get some praise! SitD is such an ace album, the song "Bloodbath", what an amazing sound on that one! A band that has gotten no mention is Grave, Into the Grave is a great album and deserves to be mentioned. Another sorta obscure choice of mine is Desultory-Into Eternity. The song "Into Eternity" is one of my favorite Swedish Death Metal songs ever.

 

[skeptik]

Grave was in the original list, actually, good job there.

 

[Blind Guardian]

2. Therion Beyond Sanctorum - Wildly inventive, and even more wildly underappreciated (in part because its often unexpected rhythms and unconventional harmonies simply proved to daring for many death metal listeners in the early 90s, but in some measure because the douchebaggery of the band's later releases simply turned off many potential listeners before they ever thought of purchasing this album).

I really agree about this album. It´s an album that has conjured images in my head which i didn´t think existed. I really like the tasteful usage of synthesizers(or whatever instruments they are..)
The biggest lack if you ask me is the vocals in some of the songs,i´d prefer if he´d sticked to more ordinary growls and not tampered with them that much. But as a whole a really original death metal album.

 

[plaguewilder]

Grave was in the original list, actually, good job there.

Congratulations on your ability to be a dick for no other reason than to be a dick.

 

[skeptik]

I was actually merely correcting you, your perception of my dickishness is due to your having been the subject of my correction.

 

[plaguewilder]

Board police to the rescue eh?

 

[skeptik]

No, again, it's unnecessary to ascribe any greater significance to my statement than it having merely been a simple correction, as there was no other intention other than striving for accuracy.

 

[Life Sucks]

I think that the sarcastic "good job there" that you threw in at the end of your statement is what may have made it seem dick-ish to him.

 

[Never78]

No way, he was really genuinely trying to help the guy out with no intention of making himself look more attentive.