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Scandinavian death metal concerns the death metal
Death metal

Death metal is an extreme metal subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs fast tempos, heavily distorted guitars, deep death growl vocals, morbid lyrics, blast beat drumming, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
 bands of Scandinavia
Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
n origin. The most dominant countries of the genre is Sweden
Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
. Many bands that fall under this category are associated with the melodic death metal
Melodic death metal

Melodic death metal is a subgenre of death metal which combines the melody of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with the intensity of death metal....
 movement, thus giving Scandinavian death metal a different sound from other variations of death metal. While Norway is more notorious for its quantity of black metal
Black metal

Black metal is an extreme metal subgenre of Heavy metal music. It often employs fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, double-kick drumming, and unconventional song structure....
, Gothenburg
Gothenburg

Gothenburg ) is the second largest city in Sweden after Stockholm and the fifth largest amongst the Nordic countries. The city is located on the south west-coast....
 in Sweden has a very large melodic death metal scene.






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Scandinavian death metal concerns the death metal
Death metal

Death metal is an extreme metal subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs fast tempos, heavily distorted guitars, deep death growl vocals, morbid lyrics, blast beat drumming, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
 bands of Scandinavia
Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
n origin. The most dominant countries of the genre is Sweden
Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
. Many bands that fall under this category are associated with the melodic death metal
Melodic death metal

Melodic death metal is a subgenre of death metal which combines the melody of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with the intensity of death metal....
 movement, thus giving Scandinavian death metal a different sound from other variations of death metal. While Norway is more notorious for its quantity of black metal
Black metal

Black metal is an extreme metal subgenre of Heavy metal music. It often employs fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, double-kick drumming, and unconventional song structure....
, Gothenburg
Gothenburg

Gothenburg ) is the second largest city in Sweden after Stockholm and the fifth largest amongst the Nordic countries. The city is located on the south west-coast....
 in Sweden has a very large melodic death metal scene. Melodic death metal is sometimes referred to as "Gothenburg metal".

Precursors

The Swedish death metal scene's earliest originators were in the D-beat
D-beat

D-beat is a style of hardcore punk developed in the early 1980s by imitators of Discharge , for whom the genre is named. Discharge may have themselves inherited the beat from Mot?rhead....
 hardcore punk
Hardcore punk

Hardcore punk is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in North America and the UK in the late 1970s. The new sound was generally thicker, heavier and faster than earlier punk rock....
 scene. Bathory
Bathory (band)

Bathory was a Sweden heavy metal music band, formed by Quorthon in 1983. They are regarded as pioneers of both black metal and Viking metal. The band is named after the infamous Hungarian people countess, Elizabeth B?thory....
, who would subsequently become a primary influence for the black metal scene, were a pivotal group in Swedish extreme metal
Extreme metal

Extreme metal is an umbrella term, somewhat loosely defined, for a number of related heavy metal music subgenres that have developed since the 1980s....
.

History

In the early 1990s, a death metal scene emerged in Gothenburg
Gothenburg

Gothenburg ) is the second largest city in Sweden after Stockholm and the fifth largest amongst the Nordic countries. The city is located on the south west-coast....
 and Stockholm
Stockholm

is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish Government of Sweden, the Parliament of Sweden, and the official residence of the Swedish Monarchy of Sweden....
. The first wave of "Swedish death metal" consisted of the bands Carnage
Carnage (band)

Carnage was an influential Sweden death metal band whose members later went on to found Dismember and Arch Enemy. The band was formed by Michael Amott and Johan Liiva in 1988....
 and Nihilist
Nihilist (band)

Nihilist was a Sweden Scandinavian death metal band which formed in 1987 formed by Nicke Andersson and Alex Hellid.The band split-up in 1989 when Johnny Hedlund left to form Unleashed ....
, who fragmented later into Entombed
Entombed (band)

Entombed is a Sweden death metal band which formed in 1987 under the name of Nihilist . Though Entombed began their career as an early pioneer of Scandinavian death metal, by the early 1990s their sound had broadened to include hardcore punk and other influences....
, Dismember
Dismember (band)

Dismember is a Sweden death metal band that formed from members of Carnage in 1988. They are well known in the extreme metal underground....
 and Unleashed
Unleashed (band)

Unleashed is a Sweden death metal band that was formed in 1989 by Johnny Hedlund after he left Nihilist . Viking culture, recollection of a pre-Christian world, and Norse mythology folklore are common themes found in the band's songs....
. These bands used the trademark Tomas Skogsberg/Sunlight Studios "buzzsaw" guitar tone, which was created by a combination of heavily detuned electric guitar
Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a type of guitar that uses pickup to convert the vibration of its steel-cored strings into an electrical current, which is made louder with an instrument amplifier and a speaker....
s and a 60 watt Peavey
Peavey Electronics

Peavey Electronics Corporation is one of the largest audio equipment manufacturers in the world, headquartered in Meridian, Mississippi in the United States....
 amp
Instrument amplifier

An instrument amplifier is an electronic amplifier that converts the inaudible electric or electronic signal from musical instruments such as an electric guitar, an bass guitar, or an Hammond organ into sounds which can be heard by the performers and audience....
 exclusively miked from behind the speaker cabinet
Loudspeaker enclosure

A loudspeaker enclosure is a cabinet designed to transmit sound to the listener via mounted loudspeaker speaker driver. The major role of the enclosure is to prevent the out-of-Phase sound waves from the rear of the speaker from combining with the in-phase sound waves from the front of the speaker....
, thus prioritizing the low frequencies in the recording process; sometimes also maxing out the Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal pedal. Later, the Gothenburg
Gothenburg

Gothenburg ) is the second largest city in Sweden after Stockholm and the fifth largest amongst the Nordic countries. The city is located on the south west-coast....
 sound, propelled by both the Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal and the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone pedal, was pioneered by bands such as At the Gates
At the Gates

At the Gates are a Sweden melodic death metal band from Gothenburg, progenitor of the Melodic_death_metal#Gothenburg_sound of Death_metal. Initially active from 1990 to 1996, the band reformed in 2007....
.

Other groups to have emerged from the Swedish death metal scene include Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy (band)

Hypocrisy is a death metal band from Sweden. It was formed in 1990 in Ludvika, Sweden by Peter T?gtgren.Musically, the band's style has drifted from a traditional death metal sound on their early albums, to a more melodic death metal sound....
, In Flames
In Flames

In Flames is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Gothenburg, Sweden, formed in 1990. The band is considered to be a pioneer and major influence to the melodic death metal music genre....
, Dark Tranquility, Arch Enemy
Arch Enemy (band)

Arch Enemy is a Sweden melodic death metal band from Halmstad, Sweden, formed in 1996 by Carcass guitarist Michael Amott along with Johan Liiva, both originally from the influential death metal band Carnage ....
, Soilwork
Soilwork

Soilwork is a Sweden melodic death metal band from Helsingborg. They are currently signed to Nuclear Blast. Formed in late 1995, originally under the name Inferior Breed, the band changed their name in late 1996 to Soilwork ....
, Meshuggah
Meshuggah

Meshuggah is a Swedish five-piece Avant-garde metal band formed in 1987. Meshuggah's line-up has primarily consisted of founding members vocalist Jens Kidman and guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, drummer Tomas Haake, who joined in 1990, and rhythm guitarist M?rten Hagstr?m, who joined in 1994....
, Amon Amarth, Opeth
Opeth

Opeth is a Swedish heavy metal music band founded in Stockholm, in 1990. While the band has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael ?kerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force since joining shortly after its inception....
, and The Haunted
The Haunted

The Haunted is a Sweden Thrash metal band, formed in 1996 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The original members were Patrik Jensen , Jonas Bj?rler , Adrian Erlandsson , Anders Bj?rler , and Peter Dolving ....
.

Bands


Bibliography

Daniel Ekeroth, Swedish Death Metal. Brooklyn: Bazillion Points Books, 2008.

See also

  • Death metal
    Death metal

    Death metal is an extreme metal subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs fast tempos, heavily distorted guitars, deep death growl vocals, morbid lyrics, blast beat drumming, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
  • Melodic death metal
    Melodic death metal

    Melodic death metal is a subgenre of death metal which combines the melody of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with the intensity of death metal....

External links