Swedish death/doom metal
The Swedish death/doom metal sound was largely pioneered by Katatonia. Katatonia started out as a raw, yet melodic band with long, epic songs on their first album “Dance of December Souls”. After the EP “For Funerals to Come” they transitioned into a Paradise Lost-influenced 4/4 beat style of doom and released the genre defining album “Brave Murder Day”, arguably the most influential disc for newer death/doom bands. After the following EP “Sounds of Decay” Katatonia abandoned the death/doom style for a more diverse sound.
A notable band of later era Swedish death doom metal is Slumber, a now defunct band that released the album “Fallout”. “Fallout” has a well-deserved 95 % review average on Metal Archives and should be considered a true genre peak. A member of Slumber later got involved in the projects Enshine and Exgenesis, both quality death/doom metal music. Another band connected to Slumber is Atoma, an atmospheric post-metal hybrid that can be considered a lighter continuation of the sound.
October Tide is another band with a solid discography. The bands is connected to Katatonia, as Katatonia vocalist Jonas Renkse sang on the first album. After disbanding the late 90’s the band resurfaced and is still active to this day. “Rain without End” is considered their classic album, but most of their material is high quality death/doom metal.
Modern Swedish death/doom metal
There are several newer bands in Sweden playing different kinds of death/doom metal. For instance, Stockholm has Soliloquium and Hadriel and the countryside has Within the Fall and When Nothing Remains. There are also a modern incarnation of Slumber called Enshine, as mentioned earlier. Doom:VS are also still active, releasing its latest album “Earthless” in 2014.
