Melodic death metal

Melodic death metal (also referred to as melodeath or MDM) is a subgenre of heavy metal music that combines death metal with elements of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The style originated and developed in Sweden (pioneered by At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity and In Flames) and the United Kingdom (pioneered by Carcass) during the early and mid-1990s. The Swedish death metal scene did much to popularize the style, soon centering in the "Gothenburg metal" scene.

Musical characteristics

Melodic death metal uses components of NWOBHM, in particular the fast riffing and harmonic guitar lines, but also is influenced by the characteristics of death metal like heavily distorted guitars, fast double-bass drum patterns and sometimes blast beats, some even utilizing elements from other genres such as black metal and thrash metal. The vocal style of the genre combines harsh screaming, sung vocals, and death growls, some artists emphasizing one of these techniques over the rest.

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking, deep growling vocals and screams, aggressive, powerful drumming featuring double kick or blast beat techniques, minor keys or atonality, abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes and chromatic chord progressions. The lyrical themes of death metal may invoke slasher film-stylized violence,religion (sometimes Satanism), occultism, Lovecraftian horror, nature, mysticism, mythology, philosophy, science fiction, and politics, and they may describe extreme acts, including mutilation, dissection, torture, rape, cannibalism, and necrophilia.

Building from the musical structure of thrash metal and early black metal, death metal emerged during the mid-1980s. Bands such as Venom, Celtic Frost, Slayer, and Kreator were important influences on the genre's creation.Possessed and Death, along with bands such as Obituary,Autopsy and Morbid Angel, are often considered pioneers of the genre. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, death metal gained more media attention as popular genre niche record labels like Combat, Earache, and Roadrunner, began to sign death metal bands at a rapid rate.

Death

Death is the termination of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include biological aging (senescence), predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Death has commonly been considered a sad or unpleasant occasion, due to the termination of social and familial bonds with the deceased or affection for the being that has died. Other concerns include fear of death, necrophobia, anxiety, sorrow, grief, emotional pain, depression, sympathy, compassion, solitude, or saudade.

Etymology

The word death comes from Old English deað, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauthuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "Process, act, condition of dying".

Associated terms

The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms for death. When a person has died, it is also said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms. Bereft of life, the dead person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and when all flesh has rotted away, a skeleton. The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though these more often connote the remains of non-human animals. As a polite reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in the deceased; another noun form is decedent. The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains, a portmanteau of "cremation" and "remains".

Metal

A metal (from Greek μέταλλον métallon, "mine, quarry, metal") is a material (an element, compound, or alloy) that is typically hard, opaque, shiny, and has good electrical and thermal conductivity. Metals are generally malleable — that is, they can be hammered or pressed permanently out of shape without breaking or cracking — as well as fusible (able to be fused or melted) and ductile (able to be drawn out into a thin wire). About 91 of the 118 elements in the periodic table are metals, the others are nonmetals or metalloids. Some elements appear in both metallic and non-metallic forms.

Astrophysicists use the term "metal" to collectively describe all elements other than hydrogen and helium. Thus, the metallicity of an object is the proportion of its matter made up of chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium.

Many elements and compounds that are not normally classified as metals become metallic under high pressures; these are formed as metallic allotropes of non-metals.

Structure and bonding

Parasite Inc.

Parasite Inc. is a melodic death metal band from Aalen, Germany. Formed in 2007 the band currently consists of Kai Bigler (vocals, guitar), Dominik Sorg (guitar), Stefan Krämer (bass) and Benjamin Stelzer (drums).

History

The band formed in 2007 after guitar player Kai Bigler and drummer Benjamin Stelzer (ex-Livid Halcyon) decided to start a band. The line-up was completed by Benedikt Grubauer (guitar) and Patrick Hauf (bass). During the first two years the band wrote songs for an album and played several concerts. In early 2010 they released a self-titled demo album, which has been recorded in late 2009 in the band's own recording studio. The mixing was done by Hendrik Kröger, while the mastering was done by the band itself. About that time Patrick Hauf left the band and was replaced by Sebastian Schmid (ex-Shattered). The demo received critical acclaim and high review scores and had been sold out soon. In the same year Parasite Inc. was chosen out of over 2.000 applicants to play at the Summer Breeze Open Air as part of the New Blood Award.