Why is Swedish Death Metal so Overrated?

In all honesty, I can't think of a scene more overpraised and overrated than the Swedish Death Metal scene. Particularly the Gothenburg area. Every time I ask someone for a good Swedish DM band on Twitter or the Metalious forums, I get the typical Arch Enemy fanboy claiming their latest album is the new Onward to Golgotha, The Epilogue to Sanity or Nespithe.

I don't mean to diss, but I'm not really into the whole "nu" death n roll thing. And even the old school bands like Dismember and Carnage are, well, pretty average when compared to stuff like Suffocation, Infester, Pestilence, Verminlust and Demilich.

So what's the deal behind the Swedish scene? Am I missing out on something, or is it really just that overhyped?

Most nowadays Swedeath is indiscernible from American mallcore. Hell In Flames even toured with Slipknot and The Black Dahlia Murder. I shit you not.

Sorry but The Red In The Sky Is Ours (At The Gates) and Fallen From The Brightest Throne (Demonecromancy) are in NO WAY over rated!!

well first you have to differentiate between the modern, gothenburg (göteborg) crowd, which are as explained above pretty much metalcore to the core (lol), and the older, much more serious stockholm scene, formed around bands like nihilist, which then became entombed, which then became carnage, which then became dismember.

comparing the two is like comparing incantation to august burns red because they both come from pennsylvania (usa). or comparing piss to whiskey, but i try to stay polite.

Well Sweden does have At the Gates - only their first album and Gardens of Grief EP are good - and Unanimated. The rest, I concur, is pretty overrated, mostly by tryhard posers who got into metal via Soilwork and System of a Down :/

@Nord: Even so-called old school Swedeath is pretty blown up actually. Let's look at the "big four" of Swedish death metal.

• Entombed: Only their first album is passable. And even then once you look under the surface it's much closer to speed metal than to actual death metal. Props for being a pioneer though as it was released in 1990 and not many Scandinavian bands were playing death metal at the time.
• Dismember: Again only their first album matters. And it's nothing extraordinary when you compare to what the Finnish and Norwegian scenes were producing at the time. Still it's probably the best of the lot.
• Unleashed: B lister and I'm being nice. Most of it is failed NWOBHM gallops inadvertently turning into polka beats. Like Motörhead with a Boss HM-2 pedal. Yawn. Their new stuff is even worse as they fully embrace the groove metal (Pantera anyone?).
• Grave: I've only ever listened to their debut Into the Grave and it suffers the same problem as most war metal: lack of dynamics. Their songs have little to no melody and rely mostly on uniform texture. The only reprieve is the mosh riffs in the middle of the songs. Pretty boring. This band didn't make the cut for a reason.

And then you have the also rans. Therion's first two which I guess are okay but again nothing spectacular. Carnage which is basically a more primitive Dismember although Dark Recollections has its moments. Necrophobic was always mallcore and they don't even bother to hide it. Complete garbage. At the Gates' debut is legendary and so is that of Demonecromancy but they are lone wolves in an ocean of sheep. And pigs. Unanimated is okay. Hypocrisy and Vomitory are forgettable and so is God Macabre. I haven't listened to Carbonized in a long time but I think they are more grindcore than death. Anyway not that remarkable. Opeth is just a joke.

If you're going to compare everything to Demilich, Neraines and Suffocation, obviously the rest is going to end up looking fragile by comparison. I agree that at the end of the day The Red in the Sky... is the pinnacle of Swedish DM, but don't overlook other stuff like Demonecromancy's Fallen From the Brightest Throne, Sentenced's North From Here and even Marduk's few death metal albums, Dark Endless and Those of the Unlight.

@Erwann: point taken, but the distinction between modern gothenburg aka metalcore with C tuning and bands like carnage and dissection still needs to be made.

If you're going to compare everything to Demilich, Neraines and Suffocation, obviously the rest is going to end up looking fragile by comparison. I agree that at the end of the day The Red in the Sky... is the pinnacle of Swedish DM, but don't overlook other stuff like Demonecromancy's Fallen From the Brightest Throne, **Sentenced's North From Here** and even Marduk's few death metal albums, Dark Endless and Those of the Unlight.

Aren't they Finnish?

Aren't they Finnish?

Burn o_Ô Finland über alles.

But seriously, outside of Demilich (Gods), Sentenced (Demigods) and maybe Desecresy (Demi-Demigod), Finland also has a bunch of overrated death metal acts. Most notably, Demigod (they don't live up to their name) and Adramelech (tries too hard to be technical, fails hard). They just aren't as hyped as Sweden's so called "melodic death metal" scene (vomits).

@Alexandre 88: They have Kalmah which tries to out Swedeath the Swedes. And Children of Bodom but they can barely be called death metal at this point.

If you want the pure Swedish death metal sound you should stick to the first At the Gates and Demonecromancy. Maybe Dawn and early Marduk as suggested for occasional listens.

Does swedish dm even exist at this point in time? It either devolved into metalcore (Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquility, Soilwork, Amon Amarth, In Flames) or progressive rock yawnfest (Opeth, Edge of Sanity, Scar Symmetry). Sorry, I'll stick to Vermin, Infester's debut and Gardens of Grief for the classic swedish death metal sound. Left Hand Path... lol, sounds like nofap but gay.

There's Swedish melodeath and Finnish melodeath. Swedish melodeath is, as correctly pointed out, closer to metalcore than to old school death metal. Think In Flames and Dark Tranquility. Finnish melodeath on the other hand, while not quite as offensive as its Swedish counterpart, is basically just NWOBHM with growls. Think Kalmah. None of them rise to the level of true Swedish - i.e. Demonecromancy - or Finnish - i.e. Demilich - legends.

Gothenburg "metal" is to Swedish DM what Cannibal Corpse is to American DM. Go listen to some Uruktena or Sissourlet.

Swedish death metal is overestimated, although it had it's own voice and identity, in part due to the early At the Gates releases. It's just like anything else, only a few albums are worth listening to until the whole "genre" becomes an unsalvageable train wreck.

Finnish DM is, on the whole, much better both in terms of creativity and technicality. Demilich gets attention from the horde for surface qualities but they have true death metal structure and spirit. A genuine precursor to modern classics such as " Ascension of Erebos " and " The Epilogue to Sanity ".

@DMX: Proportionately, Finnish Death Metal has a much stronger sense of self than most scenes, although the Nordic-descended Metal bands in general have this. Finnish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, and German bands were the most idiosyncratic in a lot of ways. The Americans were a mixed bag, either totally amazing (Incantation, Infester, Leader, Profanatica) or horrible to the point of parody (you know the ones...).

Strongly disagree with the anti-Swedish sentiment. Sure, if you read stuff by Antoine Grand or DMU it is very Americano-centric, and obviously some of the early Sweden stuff was somewhat generic, and leaning a bit on the speed metal side (Entombed, Carnage, Unleashed, etc) but if you look at the more recent years, obvious Gothenburg mall core excluded, Sweden and Scandinavian bands have put out some really solid releases.

This one is from Morbid for example, and even Morsay agrees that they have vastly improved over their early demos. Another band that rarely gets mentioned is Demonecromancy.