Metal Reviews

I've been thinking about this for all of today, and rather than choosing one of the standard melodic death bands I would have to go with Gojira. The way they have some subtle melody just makes their heavy parts that much more dynamic and heavy...

which band do you think uses melody best in death metal?

Carcass

If we're talking inside the actual genre of melodeath, I'd have to say either Heartwork-era Carcass, The Duskfall or Whoracle-era In Flames. If you want a band that doesn't play melodeath, I'd go with Vehemence (for "real" death metal) or Opeth.

Dark Tranquillity.

The melody is not as overt as in many bands of the genre, it's there the whole time unlike just in the choruses on a lot of those other bands.

Vehemence, specifically on God Was Created, and the previous album's (TTFWIH) Reconditioning the Flock.

JR and Subterrainean In Flames.

Melodeath bands would be too obvious here so I think we're talking brutal death metal here. I'll second Vehemence and add Vital Remains, Behemoth, Nile and Intestine Baalism. These bands keep their brutality but also manage to be melodic.

Carcass, Heartwork era.

Lost Soul are excellent integrators of melody into Brutal Death.

For melodeath, my favourite is Terminal Spirit Disease era ATG.

Arsis. Melodic and still very technical.
Carcass, Behemoth, Lykathea Aflame.

definetly Lykathea Aflame, yeah, but also !T.O.O.H.! .. the second track from Rad a Trest might be the world's best death metal folk song

So true!

Lykathea Aflame!

But in a way or another, one more and another one less all death metal bands manage to have some kind of melody in their music.

Now that's great metal!

Exactly. Else it'd be, like, drone or something.

I'd agree with you, Carcass, Behemoth, Nile were the first three I thought of, although Dark T. get an honourable mention for-that-cool-song-off-of-Projector-whose-name-I've-forgotten.

Children of Bodom











































Aye right.

I'm sure something can be a-melodic without being drone. I don't think a riff counts as a melody, so often bands that are purely based around riffs and rhythmic trickery have no melody at all in them.

It's hard to apply melody to a lot of DM. But yeah, like most people have already said, Lykathea Aflame certainly occupy that upper-strata of DM bands with a genuine flare for it. And like I said, I'd put ATG's Terminal Spirit Disease up there as well, but not too many others.

Surely some of the more crazy mathcore stuff out there is absent of melody?

I was being a bit sarcastic, hence my use of italics.