(written by Islander)
Some fashionings of extreme metal are so brutally downtuned or launch such ruinous percussive assaults that melody doesn’t seem to play a role in the songs. But in truth, melody almost always plays some role, though it might be very subtle or heavily obscured. Melody probably plays a more prominent role in songs we think of as infectious. Although grooves can be very catchy on their own, it’s usually melodies of one kind or another that make metal songs memorable.
The three songs I’ve put together for today’s installment of this list have strong melodic components. Unlike the majority of what’s on the list at this point, the voices carry the melodies in important ways in two of them, which is to say they have earned exceptions to the not completely serious rule in our site’s name. Two of them also have unusual instrumental features that help carry the melodies.
MESSA
I haven’t made it my mission to include songs on this list from all the albums that made YE lists far and wide. That’s really not the point of the list, and besides, we spend most of our time around here trying to open people’s eyes and ears to bands who need more exposure, and whose music deserves more exposure, rather than “household names”.
Having said that, in looking back at the memorable music of 2025 I think I would have embarrassed myself if I hadn’t included something from Messa’s album The Spin. That album commanded so much attention and adoration on YE lists among metal writers and fans worldwide that even though this list isn’t a popularity contest, it would have seemed almost like a conscious snub for me to ignore it. But above and beyond that, I just really fucking love the song “Reveal“.
I’m a sucker for a bluesy slide guitar, which is as rare as hen’s teeth in the world of metal, and that’s what’s used to launch “Reveal“. But the music also charges, propelled by bursts of blasting percussion, and the band alter that bluesy opening melody to make a more sinister experience. And then of course there’s the enormous appeal of Sara Blanchin’s sultry and soaring voice, which more than earns an exception to our “rule” about singing.
I haven’t taken a poll, but I feel pretty damed sure this song got under a lot of people’s skins, and it’s great that the spectacular guitar solo is also performed with slide guitar. Who knew (other than Messa) that delta blues and doom could co-exist so well? The video is cool too (it was entirely shot with analog equipment in a tire warehouse in Messa’s hometown).
https://messa.bandcamp.com/album/the-spin
https://www.facebook.com/MESSAproject
MATALOBOS
Speaking only for myself, though this is probably true of other people on our staff, I don’t listen to every record that other people here review. It’s not because I don’t trust them — to the contrary, I do! — but because I’m usually too damned busy exploring and absorbing music we haven’t already spotlighted. However, I made a conscious effort to listen to the Matalobos album Phantasmagoria: Hexed Lands because DGR banged his drum for it so loudly.
It wasn’t just his review that propelled me into that album, it was how urgently he pushed me and Andy Synn to check it out in a group chat we have among the three of us. But his review did really pique my interest. He referred to the album as one “dressed in the pallor of Novembers Doom’s and Swallow The Sun’s finery”, but combining that “with a taste for death metal, a tiny bit of thrashier stuff, and folk metal and regional influences.” And then there was this:
Who doesn’t love themselves a good conceptual horror story though? Even moreso, who doesn’t love them a series of horror stories with plenty of trumpet woven throughout the songs so that you always have a good reminder that you’re journeying into the desert?
I do love metal bands who use brass, especially because it’s such a rare occurrence. And lo and behold, thanks to DGR, I found that I really do love Matalobos. The whole album is well worth the full trip through it, but the song that has stuck with me the most is “Below the Dam“.
As DGR wrote, it “starts off in oppressive death-doom form before the four-minute mark when one of the bigger trumpet-driven moments of the album makes itself known.” Even in that opening segment the slowly moaning and groaning riff sinks its hooks in, backed by some attention-grabbing drum progressions and fronted by harrowing vocal intensity, and the riffing digs in even deeper when the stricken melody elevates and wails.
In that opening segment Matalobos create some other hooks, thanks to an ethereally swirling instrumental melody and big charging and chugging grooves which significantly amp up the song’s energy. And then the trumpet comes in, picking up the moody melody and carrying it forward, first in a wonderful solo and then in conjunction with the heavier instruments. The effect is spellbinding.
The song’s high-energy penultimate phase is also killer, and so is the haunting finale, in which the trumpet is accompanied by rippling piano keys.
https://matalobos.bandcamp.com/album/phantasmagoria-hexed-lands
https://linktr.ee/matalobos
https://www.facebook.com/matalobosofficial
AMORPHIS
I should say up front that I will always have a soft spot in my heart (and sometimes in my head) for Amorphis, seeing as how Skyforger was one of my gateways into extreme metal, and how much I enjoyed catching up on their older discography after that album hooked me.
Since then I’ve never not enjoyed an Amorphis album, though some have definitely left me more enthused than others. Their latest one, Borderland, left me very enthused, and the song I’ve gone back to most often from it, a habit reinforced by its wonderful accompanying video, is “Dancing Shadow“.
Honestly, I think of it as very close to a heavy metal pop song, and a danceable one at that. But it’s not as if “Dancing Shadow” represents a dramatic shift for Amorphis; some of its hallmarks have been features of this band’s music for a long time. And although it’s not as “extreme” as other examples that could be chosen from across the band’s history, I still found it irresistible.
Tomi Joutsen’s distinctive singing is a key feature of the song, though he does throw in some subdued growls here and there; he possesses such a tremendous growl that I was hoping he’d really cut loose with it, but I’ll take what I can get. Behind him, the rhythms vibrantly bounce and the music ethereally rings with clean guitars and dual dancing keyboards, though it does have some heavy undercurrents.
Joutsen also pulls out the tried and true trick of shifting the register of his voice into a higher octave for extra emotional uplift, and the guitar solo beautifully ripples as well. I never had any doubt I’d add the song to this list at some point.
https://amorphis.rpm.link/borderlandPR
https://www.facebook.com/amorphis/