In Flames finally realized that they need to reroute to remain, and so last year they released their first dose of real solid death metal in ages - but it wasn't quite enough to sway us into conferring our highest honor on them. We have something better than the new In Flames album: the new old In Flames album. Majesties is so indebted to Gothenburg that if you play this record backwards you'll hear a detailed overview of the city's public transportation infrastructure: the rich, spellbinding tones and soul-stirring guitar leads are an authentic reconstruction of what melodic death metal used to be c. the mid-'90s. Quite honestly, those colorful waterfalls of bleeding harmony are enough to carry an album through, but Majesties have also studied the rhythms, the structures, and the whole mentality of this legendary melodeath style: if the title of their debut is anything to go by, Majesties have plans to finally take this school of death metal down the path it was meant to follow 20 years ago.

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Moonlight Sorcery initially gained notoriety as a black metal band (or possibly three masquerading as one), but the shift in sound on this debut full-length has pushed them over into melodeath territory, as far as a simple majority of us were concerned. Hey, bring back the dungeon synth from the EPs and we'll talk ambient/drone/noise for next year. Wherever they go, they're not exactly staying long anyway, due to an inability to just play along and be boring: every square inch of every dungeon in this thorned castle is filled with hooks like you and the royal torturer wouldn’t believe, helped along by some very genre-appropriate synths and championed by the most unexpected lead guitar wizardry that you’re likely to hear in anything that has anything vaguely to do with black metal. A lot of the raw, wintry mystique has been supplanted by a more intensive rhythmic style and fist-pumping almost-folk comparable to Wintersun or Ensiferum, through which the density of northern comfort is sustained in a heavier format.

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It may be debatable whether naming your album Descent is a brave or smart move, but if the pinnacle of melodic death metal is just one of many future goals that can be reached through a more varied path than the direct one, then a temporary descent can still be a worthwhile trip. Descent is the fourth major stopover in Orbit Culture's 10-year-long musical career, and like on the predecessor Nija, the four Swedes wander through the lush meadows of groove metal, death metal, and melodic metalcore but enrich their journey with longer and more intensive sojourns in industrial and electronic realms. In any case, Descent is a very solid addition to the groove (death) metal catalogue, showcasing the band's ability to merge raw intensity with melodic nuances.

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Clouds Of Confusion takes off from where Deformation Of Humanity landed, being a lot more melodic than its predecessor and more expansive, with a more imaginative and adventurous use of synths, and with infinitely better cover art. The sound is very lush: the music and the vocals have so many layers, while the songwriting has a progressive and quirky character, but without missing the hooks. Despite featuring only one of the original band members in the ranks, guitarist Tom Palms, Phlebotomized have proved that there is a good reason they came back from the dead, and Clouds Of Confusion is one of the best releases in their history.

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The Québecois tech-death scene spawned quite the range of bands in terms of style; of the big names, Pronostic most closely resemble Quo Vadis, picking up the torch long since abandoned by the cult icons in incorporating a massive dollop of melody into breakneck, exhilarating technical metal. Chaotic Upheaval flies by at maximum velocity, and the frantic guitarwork and techy basslines ground it in tech-death, but with a bunch of hooky guitar leads exciting solos, and nifty use of piano and synths, the album rises high above most tech-death in terms of memorability. Pronostic’s long-awaited sophomore release does a tremendous job of continuing the legacy of Canadian tech-death as so many other acts in the scene lie dormant.

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Convergence makes an incredible triple crown for Shylmagoghnar, whose continued existence is an act of defiance against all preconceptions of how fluid, balanced, and complete a one-man band can sound: maestro Nimblkorg all on his own stands up to the heavenly, melancholy melodeath of Be'lakor and Insomnium. Well then, if not an entire band, what is it exactly that’s converging here? The answer is enough genres to make placement difficult for Awards purposes: we’ve got a sound that’s more chuggy than tremolo, with the full-bodied guitars and pummeling double bass associated with melodeath, yet still with plenty of riffs, rhythms, and refrains that could come only from the frostiest mountaintops, and the occasional interjections of piano and synth take the feeling from atmospheric black metal to symphonic metal to wee bits of dungeon synth (this guy must have some nimble Korgs). With the lengthy and often instrumental compositions, it’s hard not to lean into prog, too, but what always takes greatest precedence for Shylmagoghnar is how to make those riffs land and those atmospheres wash over with emotional richness. Shylmagoghnar is steadily moving from a sensational new act to a firmly entrenched master.

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Ounas I is album number three from Finnish melodeath outfit Suotana and an album that turns out to be just as beautiful, majestic, and epic as the cover art itself. It's well known by now that Finland as a nation has been leading the way melodeath (along with a variety of other metal genres), and with Ounas I, Suotana prove to be no exception. Through its beautifully orchestrated synth work, triumphant riffs, and enchanting melodies, with themes centered around the beauty and majesty of nature, depicting stunning wintry landscapes, Ounas I proves to be one of this year's finest releases by any Finnish metal band, let alone in the melodeath category.

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