Favorite of the Gothenburg Trio

Favorite of the Gothenburg Trio?

  • In Flames

    Votes: 30 46.9%
  • At the Gates

    Votes: 21 32.8%
  • Dark Tranqullity

    Votes: 17 26.6%

  • Total voters
    64

DXL

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In case you are confused, these three are often regarded as the pioneers of melodic death metal (alongside Carcass but we're focusing on the Gothenburg trio). So just vote for your favorite and don't mind leaving an explanation why. I'm just curious to see how the pioneers of one of my favorite genres of music compete against each other.
 

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You sir, just started my dream topic.

I am heavily influenced by the original Swedish death metal bands, more so the first wave of melodic death.

But I got to tell ya, in 1995 when In Flames released The Jester Race, Dark Tranquillity released The Gallery, and At the Gates released Slaughter of the Soul, those three albums all are what technically started the melodic death metal movement and forged those three bands forever as the "Gothenburg Trinity".

Of course, after '95, each band went their own way. In Flames followed suit with developing their trademark sound (through Whoracle, Colony, and Clayman) before they got REALLY frickin' huge. Dark Tranquillity experimented a lot with the more melodic side, and to this day they still experiment with each album sounding different and combining multiple influences. At the Gates remained brutal and dissonant (with some classical, or neo-classical-esque influence at times), but its a shame about them splitting, but the few shows they've been at since their reunion show such promise.

With that said, I'm going to pick Dark Tranquillity as my favorite. Reason being is that I just think they possess a bit more polished songwriting and their constant experimentation in their musical formula really keeps things fresh for me as a listener. Plus, a lot of their albums just have been through more spins in my CD player. (Their 1999 album Projector is another album that is a massive influence on me and it is probably the one album out of anything that I've listened to completely, front to back, the most and has the most spins. Whereas 98-99% of other albums are just "picking and choosing" what songs you want to hear at the time.)

In Flames...ehhh...I think their better days are over...last album got one spin, not even all the way through. They've completely lost it. I'm sorry but everyone says it: OLD IN FLAMES WAS BETTER BY FAR. - And At the Gates...well...I personally think that Slaughter of the Soul was really the only groundbreaking thing they did. Terminal Spirit Disease was decent, but just ehhh for one or two listens... (Just my personal opinion.) Dark Tranquillity remains relevant and interesting and adapting.

Man....this is like an amazing amount of nostalgia for me because those three albums to this day have remained on my tops list and are my biggest influences.

I ought to thank you for starting this thread! Killer poll idea! :metal:
 

Dayn

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I was unaware of any trio, but I was just going to come in and say Dark Tranquillity. So Dark Tranquillity because... Dark Tranquillity.
 

Bodes

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Dark Tranquility. For they keep experimenting with their sound and have not (IMO) released a disappointing album.
 

Church2224

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I would say Dark Tranquility, that said In Flame's first four albums can always be heard on my Ipod. I do like all of their albums up to Come Clarity, but for me it is hard to top Colony.

 

Dethyr

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No Soilwork?

For me, At the Gates didn't have a long enough career so Ill say In Flames. From beginning until Clayman IF was incredible.... thennnnnn..... not so much. Dark Tranquility has their moments but theyve never put out an album that I loved from start to finish whereas In Flames and ATG both have at least two that crushed.
 

wankerness

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I think At the Gates was the most influential and I love their "SELL-OUT" albums (Terminal Spirit Disease/Slaughter of the Soul), but Dark Tranquillity is certainly the band I've listened to the most. I got into them with Projector, but I really thought the Gallery was awesome (especially "Lethe") and Damage Done was one of my most-played metal albums for a long time. "Haven" eventually became my favorite, it's not as intricate or technical as most of their other ones and I know it's often viewed as a step back from Projector cause they ditched the clean vocals, but I think the songwriting's the strongest on it. "Fabric" is definitely my favorite song by them, and the whole album is just loaded with classics.

In Flames was a band I never really got into. I was into Soilwork and DT and stuff before I ever went back and checked out The Jester Race, and while I liked it, they'd already gotten into their period of being the most hated metal band around (the internet backlash against Reroute to Remain was truly stunning, haha) so I was consistently directed NOT to listen to them. I thought Whoracle and Clayman were decent the one time I listened to them but they just were too "safe" compared to DT and Soilwork and whatnot. They didn't have the razor edges of At the Gates and didn't have quite the level of interesting stuff going on musically as Dark Tranquillity. Jester's Race certainly isn't a slouch of an album or anything, but it just seemed too smooth, or something.

And yeah, I know they came before Soilwork and thus shouldnt' be compared.

The Chainheart Machine is my favorite of those Gothenburg albums, I think it's the ultimate in terms of entertainment value. That album absolutely shreds. They were just a couple years too late to be included in this poll!
 
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I would say Dark Tranquility, that said In Flame's first four albums can always be heard on my Ipod. I do like all of their albums up to Come Clarity, but for me it is hard to top Colony.



We share the same mindset, man.

Dark Tranquillity all the way, but In Flames would be my number two pick just because of how epic their first four albums were. And for me, Colony was just like 4 years of my childhood/teenagerdom. (Maybe The Jester Race too.)

With that said, I actually expected a lot more people to vote for In Flames just because they appear to be a "bigger" band with more fans, ya know? This is quite a pleasant surprise for me! ^_^
 

Church2224

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We share the same mindset, man.

Dark Tranquillity all the way, but In Flames would be my number two pick just because of how epic their first four albums were. And for me, Colony was just like 4 years of my childhood/teenagerdom. (Maybe The Jester Race too.)

With that said, I actually expected a lot more people to vote for In Flames just because they appear to be a "bigger" band with more fans, ya know? This is quite a pleasant surprise for me! ^_^

Yeah man same here! Everyone I know who is into metal knows in Flames, but never Dark Tranquility.

They also Agree Colony was the epitome of their musical career. And my god, the first time I hear Moonshield I damn near cried at such shear emotion that song has for me...
 
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And my god, the first time I hear Moonshield I damn near cried at such shear emotion that song has for me...

Man, I remember being a kid trying to play the main riff in E-standard because I was just starting out and didn't know jackshit about different tuning or tuning down or anything. x'D - With that said, I did get "Artifacts of the Black Rain" down perfect in E-standard via transposing once I finally learned how to play and shit within my first year or two or three.

Anyway, I also remember being OBSESSED with that "lead guitar tone" they had on JUST The Jester Race. You know what I'm talking about? That very mid-range, mid-gain "ancient-sounding" lead tone that sounded more like DI than like an amp? That solo on "December Flower" and the leads on "Moonshield" really just popped with that odd lead tone. - In fact, I'm STILL OBSESSED with trying to crack that lead tone! CHARGE!
 

feraledge

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Personally I voted for At the Gates. Even though they weren't around as long, they got in, made a splash and no weak albums. It was amazing seeing the reunion shows.
In Flames deserves a ton of credit for those first albums, but I didn't care for the direction they went in.
Dark Tranquillity is amazing, the only reason they didn't get my vote is that I think their peak after their early stuff. Not that the earliest stuff was bad by any means, they just kept kicking it up. The only album I wasn't feeling was the Void.

Awesome bands, great albums, excellent thread!
 

wankerness

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And not from Gothenburg.

Oh, you're right, they aren't. They just got lumped in with them and were said to have "the gothenburg sound" sometimes so I just assumed.

But "Ace of Base" is from Gothenburg!

:hbang::hbang::hbang::hbang:
 

Joose

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^Definitely. I found Soilwork because of In Flames, ended up liking Soilwork more.

And to touch on the topic more; The thing with In Flames for me, is that I actually don't enjoy the really old stuff that much. Reroute To Remain made me a fan; Soundtrack To Your Escape was more like the soundtrack to my sophomore year in high school lol. Really like Come Clarity and Sounds of a Playground Fading too. Excited for their new one.
 

Adam Of Angels

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I love all three, but In Flames has a MUCH broader range of emotion and melodic elements to offer. I love everything they've put out, but I think everything from Jester Race to Reroute is sheer genius (for the Reroute skeptics, listen to it closely, as much of the melodic guitars are buried in the mix).

They're my favorite band, no question about it. I don't know how any metal or rock fan can listen to something like "Man Made God" and not love it. Their hey-day music is absolutely oozing with inspired melodies with rhythms and grooves perfectly weaved into them.


Oh, and while they have nothing to do with this, Soilwork has never ever done anything wrong. Straight A's across the board.
 

Michael T

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I love all three, but In Flames has a MUCH broader range of emotion and melodic elements to offer. I love everything they've put out, but I think everything from Jester Race to Reroute is sheer genius (for the Reroute skeptics, listen to it closely, as much of the melodic guitars are buried in the mix).

They're my favorite band, no question about it. I don't know how any metal or rock fan can listen to something like "Man Made God" and not love it. Their hey-day music is absolutely oozing with inspired melodies with rhythms and grooves perfectly weaved into them.


Oh, and while they have nothing to do with this, Soilwork has never ever done anything wrong. Straight A's across the board.


Couldn't have said it better. Perfection
 

oompa

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Slaughter of the Soul was the only groundbreaking album AtG did, but boy was it groundbreaking. I think most people outside of Sweden do not understand the impact that album had on Swedish metal. There are few songs that did sound anything like that entire album does pre 95' and after that the entire Swedish DM scene sounded like that and still does. You'll find more Swedish DM bands referring to that album as the best album to ever come out of Sweden than any other within the DM scene in general I think.

In Flames had been very influential with Jester Race (and Whoracle), those albums spawned a bunch of bands the following years that mixed Swedish folk with metal, while Colony was the first album to go mainstream and the start of the decline of their old sound. Dark Tranquillity was always a band that everyone respected and enjoyed but never got as much attention. They always seemed to have a lot of integrity and never had that impactful release that some other bands had.

I think many people exaggerate the locality of the Gothenburg sound as well. Göteborg is the second largest city in the country, any band that had anything going in a 200mile radius would move there or play there or hang out with the other bands there, I see people all the time from other areas/countries talking about the Gothenburg sound as if it does not include bands like The Crown, Soilwork, Dissection, Hypocrisy, Arch Enemy etc. but nearly all of those bands were in on the circus to some extent. The entire scene was boiling at the time, All the DM bands in Sweden converged there, did shows together and influenced each other a lot the early to mid 90's was a time where all the pioneering bands would influence new bands which would take what they liked from all of the above, including bands like Dismember and Entombed.

The album Storm of the Lights Bane is another album that had a huge influence on many bands in Sweden, it is maybe the only album with Gothenburg Melo-death mixed with BM that was ever made. The same goes for certain individuals like Peter Tägtgren. There were a few acts that did their own thing separately at the time, like Meshuggah for example (they're from far up north). The Gothenburg DM sound was taking shape and later on people pick out the ones that sound specifically melodic and call them "Gothenburg Melo-Death" as if it had evolved separately or something. Trust me, every DM band in the country was influenced by Entombed and the likes at first, and every band would later be mind blown by Slaughter of the Soul no matter what sub-genre of DM they were in.

People sat in the early 90's with their Entombed records, we had heard Dismember, DT and AtG etc. but they weren't really that big, then 95' hit which would define every Swedish metal sub-genre: Slaughter of the Soul, The Jester Race, Storm of the Light's Bane and Destroy Erase Improve just blew everyone's mind, and after that you had a sea of bands surfacing because the music got so much attention. Before that Entombed were probably bigger than all the rest combined, now the Melo-Death releases not only drew attention to In Flames' and DT's previous releases but it promoted other bands starting out in the same fashion, all the while Dissection had a similar impact on BM and Meshuggah just created Djent :lol:

It was an amazing time to be a teenager who just got into metal and played the guitar, you had a golden era of American Trash and Death behind you coming to an end with bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Anthrax, Slayer, SYL, Fear Factory, Death, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse and Deicide etc. which is what everybody listened to up til 95' here, then we got stuck in our own bubble for a while :lol: Good stuff! :yesway:

tl:dr; At the Gates :lol:

As Björn Strid comically sings in the chorus of Wrath of the Cookie Monster:

"I stole some riffs from a CD today, I think it was At the Gates! I blend it up with my personal taste, my friends got totally amazed!" That's what everyone was doing back then :lol:
 
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Slaughter of the Soul was the only groundbreaking album AtG did, but boy was it groundbreaking. I think most people outside of Sweden do not understand the impact that album had on Swedish metal. There are few songs that did sound anything like that entire album does pre 95' and after that the entire Swedish DM scene sounded like that and still does. You'll find more Swedish DM bands referring to that album as the best album to ever come out of Sweden than any other within the DM scene in general I think.

In Flames had been very influential with Jester Race (and Whoracle), those albums spawned a bunch of bands the following years that mixed Swedish folk with metal, while Colony was the first album to go mainstream and the start of the decline of their old sound. Dark Tranquillity was always a band that everyone respected and enjoyed but never got as much attention. They always seemed to have a lot of integrity and never had that impactful release that some other bands had.

I think many people exaggerate the locality of the Gothenburg sound as well. Göteborg is the second largest city in the country, any band that had anything going in a 200mile radius would move there or play there or hang out with the other bands there, I see people all the time from other areas/countries talking about the Gothenburg sound as if it does not include bands like The Crown, Soilwork, Dissection, Hypocrisy, Arch Enemy etc. but nearly all of those bands were in on the circus to some extent. The entire scene was boiling at the time, All the DM bands in Sweden converged there, did shows together and influenced each other a lot the early to mid 90's was a time where all the pioneering bands would influence new bands which would take what they liked from all of the above, including bands like Dismember and Entombed.

The album Storm of the Lights Bane is another album that had a huge influence on many bands in Sweden, it is maybe the only album with Gothenburg Melo-death mixed with BM that was ever made. The same goes for certain individuals like Peter Tägtgren. There were a few acts that did their own thing separately at the time, like Meshuggah for example (they're from far up north). The Gothenburg DM sound was taking shape and later on people pick out the ones that sound specifically melodic and call them "Gothenburg Melo-Death" as if it had evolved separately or something. Trust me, every DM band in the country was influenced by Entombed and the likes at first, and every band would later be mind blown by Slaughter of the Soul no matter what sub-genre of DM they were in.

People sat in the early 90's with their Entombed records, we had heard Dismember, DT and AtG etc. but they weren't really that big, then 95' hit which would define every Swedish metal sub-genre: Slaughter of the Soul, The Jester Race, Storm of the Light's Bane and Destroy Erase Improve just blew everyone's mind, and after that you had a sea of bands surfacing because the music got so much attention. Before that Entombed were probably bigger than all the rest combined, now the Melo-Death releases not only drew attention to In Flames' and DT's previous releases but it promoted other bands starting out in the same fashion, all the while Dissection had a similar impact on BM and Meshuggah just created Djent :lol:

It was an amazing time to be a teenager who just got into metal and played the guitar, you had a golden era of American Trash and Death behind you coming to an end with bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Anthrax, Slayer, SYL, Fear Factory, Death, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse and Deicide etc. which is what everybody listened to up til 95' here, then we got stuck in our own bubble for a while :lol: Good stuff! :yesway:

tl:dr; At the Gates :lol:

As Björn Strid comically sings in the chorus of Wrath of the Cookie Monster:

"I stole some riffs from a CD today, I think it was At the Gates! I blend it up with my personal taste, my friends got totally amazed!" That's what everyone was doing back then :lol:

My hero. :') Finally a brother who has studied up on his stuff too!

(Let's create a club. :lol:)
 


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