Category: Music

“Gothenburg metal,” a.k.a. “melodic death metal,” takes its name from the scene originating in Gothenburg, Sweden in the 90s. Unlike traditional death metal, the Gothenburg style features “more melodic guitar riffs, melodic solos, and acoustic guitar work than death metal. It also contains more comprehensible lyrics as well as coherent singing along with traditional death growl vocals.” The Gothenburg style has been a big influence on the so-called New Wave of American Heavy Metal – bands like Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, Lamb of God, Unearth, etc.

So, here’s a sampling of the Gothenburg sound:

In Flames, “Take This Life”:

Dark Tranquility, “Focus Shift”

At the Gates, “Blinded by Fear”

Heavy metal is the Protestantism of music: it splits into ever-smaller sects, with their devotees often anathematizing all others. You have speed, thrash, death, grind, doom, sludge, glam, goth, stoner, symphonic, prog, metalcore, grindcore, deathcore, etc. ad infinitum forever and ever Amen.

But did you know there’s a sub-genre called mathcore? Mathcore, according to Wikipedia:

is usually filled with discordant, somewhat technical riffing, complex time signatures and song structures, and passionate, energetic vocals. Songs played by bands of this style tend to vary from mere seconds in length to over 15 minutes and rarely feature a conventional verse-chorus song structure.

Case in point:

Now, even I find this virtually unlistenable.

(Note: this post doesn’t replace our regularly scheduled Friday metal.)

A while back I posted a link to a video from this band along with a few other “Christian metal” acts. This past weekend we made a pilgrimage to Target in Alexandria – the first time we’d been there since moving in back in July, so lots of household items to stock up on – and I noticed they had AILD’s new album, An Ocean Between Us, pretty cheap so I picked it up. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. AILD is not a “Christian band” in the pejorative sense (they’re on Metal Blade records, after all) and this is good straight-up thrash metal with metalcore influences (or vice versa):

Just cause I feel like it and have been listening to this album today:

Killswitch Engage, “My Last Serenade”:

Okay, metal is a bit of a stretch, but there are definitely some metal inflections (along with funk, rap, reggae, etc.). More importantly, they’re just good.

“Fight The Youth”

“Sunless Saturday”