Melodic death metal, or melodeath, emerged in the early 90s, most notably in Gothenberg, Sweden with bands like At The Gates and In Flames. Since then, the genre has expanded to every corner of the world, and birthed many further subgenres like blackened melodeath and melodic metalcore.
Italian metallers 5RAND incorporate alternative, thrash and of course, melodeath elements into their unique brand of metal – the latter of which is particularly apparent through Julia Elenoir's mixture of clean and guttural vocals.
“Melodic death metal is certainly one of our favourite genres to listen to," the band explain.
So to celebrate the release of their second album Dark Mother back in September we asked them to pick out the melodeath albums that helped to shape their own songwriting.
Almost all of their picks are from Sweden, "but you’ll see that they’re not your typical Swedish old school death metal: there’s a strong emphasis on the melody and complexity in the albums we chose, because we wanted to point out the records that drove us to the genre in the first place."
So, in chronological order, here are the band's top 10 melodic death metal records.
