Svensk metall är bästa metallen.

Or: a study in contrasting video techniques using the first three Swedish metal bands I found on Youtube.




At the Gates. What is there to even say about At the Gates? Adrian Erlandsson could basically only play two beats, and Tomas Lindberg looked ridiculous with that hair, but still, the best goddamn melodic death metal band ever. Period. Goooooooo Göteborg!




Cult of Luna is probably (arguably) the most artistically "deep" (whatever the hell that means, really) of the bands, but also (because of?) the least interesting to talk about. So whatever, good song, good video, woooo post-metal.




God I love Amon Amarth. I feel like, as long as there are still bands like this in the world, things can't really be that bad. I mean, they sing about vikings, everyone in the band looks like a viking, they got a bunch of their fans to dress up as vikings and fucking fight each other, DOES IT EVEN GET ANY MORE RAD THAN THAT? NO. IT DOES NOT.

The song is actually about Thor battling Jörmungand at Ragnarök (reference earlier "deep" comment), which I actually think could have provided an even better, more gloriously cheesy video concept, but whatever. The Amon Amarth signature synchronized helicopter headbanging is notably absent, but it's made up for when suddenly one of the guys is holding both a flaming sword and shield. Practical? Probably not. Metal? Yes. Really, I just wish I could've been there when somebody was like "wait, you know what would make this even more awesome? if we LIT EVERYTHING ON FUCKING FIRE."

And on a musical note, that harmonized pinch-harmonic part right before the guitar solo, (3:25ish) is so goddamn sweet I can hardly stand it.