Swedish death metal

Swedish death metal is a death metal music scene developed in Sweden. Many Swedish death metal bands are associated with the melodic death metal movement, thus giving Swedish death metal a different sound from other variations of death metal. Unlike American death metal groups, the first Swedish bands were rooted in hardcore punk.

Quotes about Swedish death metal

• In Gothenburg, there’s one band that rules supreme, and that’s Iron Maiden. Everyone from Gothenburg loves Iron Maiden for some reason, so naturally their version of death metal would be melodic and with a twin guitar harmony attack.
  • Patrik Jensen of The Haunted [1]
• In Sweden, death metal started in Stockholm. [...] Grotesque were together in 1987 and so were Nihilist. And the Stockholm bands were more based around Judas Priest and Motorhead – a fast, but rock and roll kind of approach — more dirty than what came out of Gothenburg.
  • Anders Bjorler of At the Gates and The Haunted [2]
• In Stockholm bands were very heavily influenced by punk rock and noisy MC5 kind of stuff. They were all about getting feedback on the guitar and being unpolished.
  • Patrik Jensen of The Haunted [3]
• The difference between Stockholm bands and Gothenburg bands is in Stockholm you join a band to walk through the VIP door of the nightclub and in Gothenburg you join a band because you want to play and you stay home practicing Friday and Saturday night. There were a few places to play, but people were so focused on being nerdy with their instruments and their bands and rehearsed all the time. The Haunted shared a rehearsal space with In Flames for a year or two and everyone just hung out together playing and drinking beer.
  • Marco Aro of The Haunted [4]
• Left Hand Path remains one of the most gruesomely perfect pieces of Swedish death metal ever committed to tape. [...] Most importantly, the Swedish sluggers’ stellar debut showed the Yanks didn’t have the monopoly on white-hot death metal. Bands are still ripping it off 30 years on.
  • Metal Hammer staff [5]
• When I compare other countries’ scenes, there is no healthier scene than Sweden’s when it comes to musicians. There are kick-ass bands in practically every town in this country, and there always have been. I remember going to concerts back in the day and you just had to look around and you saw all these guys from different bands. [...] In the black metal, thrash and death metal scenes, there was never this gap between the band and the fans. Everybody played. Some were on a bigger level but they always mingled with the audience, always. Everybody starts really early up here. Everybody wants to be as good as all the guys they looked up to in school, and with the way our community is built up, you get a chance early on. [...] You can borrow and rent equipment fairly cheaply, so it is a good opportunity if you are a young kid to jump on that bandwagon and have fun with it. I think the whole underground movement settled down here in Stockholm as a scene itself with bands like Nihilist, Unleashed, Dismember, Grave. There were tonnes of them. Then you finally knew you were into something that was going to last.
  • Anders Nyström of Bloodbath [6]

• I think there was always a big divide between the Stockholm and Gothenburg scenes. The Gothenburg scene seemed to be way more into the melodic aspect; I don’t think they ever went for the brutality in death metal. [...] If you overdo the melodic aspect within death metal you’re definitely going to chop off an important element. [...] Of course, there were bands who were mixing it up pretty good. You had bands like Grotesque, which led to At The Gates, but in some ways they kept the tradition of [heavy metal] - I don’t want to say the cheesy element but the hyper-melodic element of it all. [...] And, for me, if you overdo the melodic aspect within death metal you’re definitely going to chop off an important element, an essential element of death metal, and that is the darkness. The whole eerie, dark element of death metal is to not go too melodic. [...] Yeah, I’m really proud to be from the Stockholm scene when I talk about that because I think the Stockholm underground death metal scene really did good in keeping justice to the whole true promise of death metal.
  • Anders Nyström of Bloodbath [7]
• Remember when death metal was about big ugly riffs and spine-chilling leads rather than an attempt to cram as many notes and beats into a song as possible with the aid of Pro Tools? When albums were filled with memorable tunes and atmosphere instead of monotonous blastfests, one barely distinguishable from another? In Sweden they never forgot. Indeed, during the 20 years since that distinctly dirty, punishing sound first crawled from the depths of Stockholm, the beast has remained alive, kept in fighting fitness by the pioneers who first brought it to life.
  • Metal Hammer
• In contrast to the melodic and technical flourishes found [in the Gothenburg sound], the original Swedish sound – made famous by the likes of Dismember, Entombed, Grave and Unleashed – is characterised by big, dirty and generally downtuned guitars, pounding drum beats, a taste for morbid groove and relatively straightforward song structures. The fact that most of the bands central to its creation stuck to their guns enabled it to forge a clear identity, one which stands in welcome contrast to the cold, technical direction US bands – and those inspired by US bands – have tended to follow.
  • Metal Hammer