The Gothenburg Scene

What is Melodic death metal? Wikipedia describes this almost oxymoronic genre of metal as a “style that combines elements from the new wave of British heavy metal with elements of death metal”. Another term, Gothenburg metal, is used to describe bands associated with or stylistically similar to the melodic death metal scene that originated around Gothenburg, Sweden. Gothenburg being the second-largest city in Sweden (after Stockholm) and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, as Keith Kahn-Harris writes, “was marginal to the extreme metal scene until the early 1990’s(Kahn-Harris 98).

Gothenburg's native born commercially successful bands such as Grotesque, At the Gates, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity are credited with pioneering melodic death metal. So how did this scene get started in Sweden out of all places? As Kahn-Harris explains, “The pioneering death metal band Grotesque stimulated the formation of a tight-knit clique of musicians”(Kahn-Harris 98). This tight knit statrted off as a small Swedish scene and evolved into such huge events as The Metaltown Festival, a two day festival featuring heavy metal music bands, held in Gothenburg. The most recent festival in June 2010, included globally metal bands such as Coheed and Cambria, Dark Tranquility, Rammstein, Amon Amarth, and In Flames.

Gothenburg's scene today is soley credited to the support given to musicians in the city, an environment conducive to a highly supportive and creative scene. Lets see what Swedish death metal author Daniel Ekeroth has to say about the culmination and rise of the scene in the early 90’s in the interview below.