The Gothenburg Three Revisited

To learn more about Melodic Death Metal and Metal in general please check out the great resource called The Map Of Metal created by Metal Historian Nick Grant.

In the early 90’s something big was brewing in Gothenburg Sweden, it eventually became known as Melodic Death Metal . Most people would argue that this sound rose up around three key bands, At The Gates, In Flames, and Dark Tranquillity (yes they spell their name with two L’s). At The Gates was the band I connected with the most, In Flames was a little too melodic and I did listen to Dark Tranquillity but not as much. 

In the 80’s I was listening to a lot of British Metal but in the mid 80’s I discovered Thrash Metal, bands like Megadeth, Metallica, Exodus, DRI, Nuclear Assault, SOD, and Anthrax. But the bands that really rang home with me at the time were the more aggressive bands like Sepultura, Slayer, and Carnivore. It wasn’t until later that I discovered Deicide, Cannibal Corpse,  and Death, after that there was no turning back.

For much of the 90’s I was out of the country and for the rest of it I was just plain out of it. I didn’t get back in to listening to Death Metal until the early 2000’s and by then At The Gates had broken up, but the two guitarists had formed a new band called The Haunted. At first The Haunted seemed to be carrying the flag of At The Gates but after a few CDs they began to become more Metal Core and less Death Metal.  After the most recent release (Unseen) I could no longer listen to The Haunted (hopefully they will get out of this mode and get back to making good Death Metal), so I found myself wondering, “What if I go back and listen to the old Gothenburg scene again and take another look at it”.

For the most part people connect Death Metal with machinegun drums, growling vocals, and speedy guitars, and mostly they are right. I always hear people say, “But you can’t understand what they are saying”, well I don’t speak German either but it doesn’t prevent me from listening to Richard Wagner.  If you base your listening and art desires solely on what’s being said; then you are selling your experience short for everything else. Usually with rock and almost all Metal bands there is at least 3 more elements to the art then a voice.

When you create a movie, painting, or story, you don’t create your antagonist to be a pansy, you create it to be tough, cunning, brutal, and for the most part threatening. Death Metal singers play the role of the antagonist in their story. If your playing a demon, a warrior, or the enemy of Christianity you’re not going to be sexy, or personable.

In Gothenburg the Death Metal bands refined their sound just a little more. While keeping the vocals very aggressive the music began to take a bigger more epic sound. Instrumentally the music became more reminiscent of the days of Iron Maiden and Helloween, while at the exact same time borrowed much of the tunings from Death Metal and chord progressions from Grind Core.

Dark Tranquillity

My first attempted at my Gothenburg return was with In Flames. I figured maybe I had judged this band too harshly. Sadly this run I came to an even more harsh conclusion. To me (and I know this will cause arguments) In Flames is the Limp Bizkit of Death Metal.

Over the last few weeks I decided to go back and listen to the entire Dark Tranquillity discography and I discovered I gave up on this band way too early. Though they have some songs in there I strongly dislike, for the most part everything is well written and each CD makes a bold attempt to move forward (even if in doing so didn’t work out well).  Of all their CDs the two that stuck with me the most were Damage Done and Fiction. Damage Done is straight forward, heavy hitting, take no prisoners and don’t cry about it, Melodic Death. While Fiction takes a more artistic approach, almost like they stepped back and mixed a lot of learned lessons from their previous releases and refined the execution. Of all the CDs where they use clean vocals, Fiction is the only one that I actually find myself enjoying.

In closing, it is understood that I do prefer the Swedish brand of Death Metal over American Death but my tastes are geared more towards the Stockholm Death Metal bands and not the Gothenburg sound.  However for what its worth I would have to say that Dark Tranquillity are the uncrowned kings of the Gothenburg Metal scene. With over twenty years under their belts and still containing four of their original members Dark Tranquillity is surely the most enduring band of that scene. Its just a shame I gave up on them too early and missed a lot of good shows. But thankfully they have recorded their art and I can re-live things that I missed.

Id like to leave you with a Live clip from their Fiction CD, the concert was in Milano and I think its a great example of Dark Tranquillity.