Martin Hanner's (Skyfire) Top 5 Most Underrated Melodic Death Metal Albums

Posted September 29 by Chris D.

By Martin Hanner (Skyfire)

5. The Crown – Deathrace King (Metal Blade)
This album consists of 49 minutes of metal in its purest form. There is not a dull moment to be found here; the riffs are great, incredible drumming, cool raw vocals and the songs are fast and they have a nice aggressive touch to them. I cannot really find anything to complain about. Everything from the production to the lyrics and the music itself just make perfect sense. These things combined results in one of the best party albums ever. If you are into metal that is.

4. Embraced – Amorous Anathema (Regain)
This is another one of my favorite albums which is really underrated. It is melodic death/black that stands out about a bit from the competition by using the piano as the lead instrument while the guitars most of the time work as complement to the keys. They have some great guitar melodies as well though. The album has a great dark atmosphere and there are also some really cool tempo changes to be found.

3. Embraced – Within (Regain)
This is their second and last album and this one is a bit darker and faster than their previous work. Just like the first one this album is also heavily keyboard based, but here they mix together the melodic and beautiful parts with more chaotic and raging parts, which I think creates a pretty original sound. Both of Embraced's albums have influenced us when it comes to incorporating piano into metal music.

2. Decameron – My Shadow... (No Fashion)
Yet another Swedish act which plays guitar-driven melodic death metal. Many good songs and while the music might not be the most original in the genre they manage to keep the songs interesting. Most of the time. There is also some great drumming to be found. I also think the vocals are really cool. Some of the guitar riffs are quite technical and they break up the music with some pretty cool rhythm changes.

1. Bal-Sagoth – Starfire Burning upon the Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule (Cacophonous)
Probably on of my favorite albums within in the genre. If you are looking for something epic you don’t need to look any further. The lyrics alone are so epic and well written that they could doubtless be given out in book form and tell a tale of their own. Combined with the bombastic music it gets even better. The songs are really interesting. I guess you could say that the music is quite progressive, because the songs consist of a lot of different riffs. The only thing that could make this album even better in my opinion is if the black metal-inspired vocals were a bit better. That said, the vocalist also uses a low pitch narrative voice, which together with some of the melodies on the album gives me the chills.

** Skyfire's new album Esoteric is in stores now! Order it here.

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