Metal Bands from Sweden

The history and the pioneers

Sweden is today one of the biggest producers of metal in Scandinavia and the world. The term Scandinavian metal is used for metal music from Norway, Denmark and Sweden, and often Finland and Iceland too. It is some of the most passionate metal you will come across, and Swedish death metal bands played a key role in shaping its sound. The pioneers showed later bands, from Candlemass to smaller acts such as Zephyra, the way to the big stages. The most important of those pioneers is Bathory.

Bathory brought Scandinavian extreme metal to the public in 1983 and released its self-titled debut album in 1984. The band did not play death metal, but it had a tremendous influence on the death and black metal scenes in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia. One of the first extreme metal bands from Sweden to follow Bathory was Mefisto, originally formed under the name Torment in 1984.

Three bands that followed the pioneers

Obscurity, formed in Malmö in 1985, was one of the first bands in Sweden to play death metal. The group released demos in 1986, 1987 and 1992 but no full-length album. In Stockholm, Scapegoat changed its name to Morbid in 1986. Morbid split up in 1988 after releasing demos in 1987 and 1988; its music was a mix of black, death and thrash metal, often simply called extreme metal. The third band is Acid Queen, which later became Sorcery. Of the three, Sorcery is the only one that released an album, Bloodchilling Tales, in 1991.

The Stockholm death metal scene becomes the biggest in Scandinavia

The Stockholm scene eventually became the biggest in Scandinavia. Early metal bands from the city include Axewitch, founded in 1981, which started with a heavy, almost thrash-like approach before moving towards glam rock. Bands formed in and around Stockholm in the late 1980s include Nirvana 2002, Carnage and Dismember.

Several bands from the Stockholm area released their debut albums in 1992 and 1993, among them Epitaph, Centinex, Afflicted, Unanimated, Desultory and Necrophobic. Katatonia, also from Stockholm, started out mixing doom, death and black metal before moving towards a gothic, melancholic sound. Two members of the band later formed the death-doom band October Tide.

Read more about the genre in our posts on Swedish death metal bands and Swedish black metal bands.

A documentary about Swedish metal history

Sometimes it is easier and more fun to watch a film than to read a book. The best way to experience metal is of course to listen to it, but there are several documentaries about rock and metal worth watching. One of them is Så jävla metal (So Fucking Metal).

The documentary follows how metal bands from Sweden were portrayed in the media and how that changed over time. Through Så jävla metal you meet many of the people behind Swedish metal and its growth into the big industry it is today. It contains a lot of information you may not find elsewhere, since not much was written about metal in Sweden during its early years.