After Forever was a Dutch symphonic metal band with strong progressive metal influences. The band relied on the use of both soprano vocals and death growls.
Thyrfing is a viking metal band from Sweden. The band is named after the royal sword Tyrfing from Norse mythology.
Virgin Black is an Australian symphonic gothic and doom metal band. The band was signed to The End Records and Germany's Massacre Records, through which it released four albums and one EP. A fifth album, originally planned for release in 2006, was released independently in 2018. As of 2021, they are signed to Australian record label, Dark Escapes Music. Formed in 1995 in Adelaide, they have achieved international acclaim during their career, receiving praise from such magazines as Orkus, Metal Hammer, Legacy and The Village Voice.
Symphonic metal is a cross-generic style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitars of metal with different elements of orchestral classical music, such as symphonic instruments, choirs and sometimes a full orchestra, or just keyboard orchestration.
Funeral are a Norwegian funeral doom band formed in 1991 by Thomas Angell and Anders Eek; soon afterward, Einar Frederiksen joined as bassist and songwriter and Christian Loos joined as guitarist. They are known as one of the pioneers of the funeral doom genre.
Primal Fear is a German power metal band formed in 1997 by Ralf Scheepers and Mat Sinner. Sinner and Scheepers formed the band after Scheepers was not hired as Rob Halford's replacement in Judas Priest.
Gothic metal is a fusion genre combining the aggression of heavy metal with the dark atmospheres of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music. The genre originated during the early 1990s in the United Kingdom originally as an outgrowth of death-doom, a fusion of death metal and doom metal. Lyrics are generally dark and introspective with inspiration from gothic fiction as well as personal experiences.
Prison of Desire is the debut album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. It was released on 21 April 2000 by Transmission Records. The album contains the first four installments of The Embrace That Smothers, a collection of songs by Mark Jansen which deals with the influence and distortion of religion in human society. This theme was carried over to the Epica albums The Phantom Agony and The Divine Conspiracy.
The Eternal are an Australian gothic/doom metal band formed in 2003 by Mark Kelson on guitar, lead vocals and keyboards. They are known for playing dark, melodic, doom metal with eastern and gothic influences.
Creepmime were a Dutch death metal band active from 1991 to 1997, and recorded two full-length albums, both on Mascot Records.
Amanda Somerville is an American singer-songwriter and vocal coach who resides in Wolfsburg, Germany. She is known primarily for her work with many European symphonic metal bands.
Immortal Souls is a melodic death metal band from Kokkola, Finland, formed in 1991. They released a split album and their debut on Little Rose Productions in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2002, Immortal Souls signed with Dutch label Fear Dark which released their second and third album as well as a compilation. They have performed at Tuska Open Air Metal Festival. Their musical style is characterized by their use of melodic guitar riffs and singing which shifts between growls and shouting. Their music has been called winter metal since Immortal Souls utilizes frosty metaphors in their lyrics and usually creates a cold, wintry atmosphere. The album Wintereich was released in 2007 in Europe on Dark Balance and in the USA through Facedown Records.
Cadaveria, real name Raffaella Rivarolo, is an Italian musician famous for being one of the first women to enter the extreme metal scene in the early 1990s, as former vocalist and keyboard player of the symphonic black metal band Opera IX.
Alessandro Nunziati, better known by his stage name Lord Vampyr, is an Italian musician, record producer and writer, famous for being the former vocalist of the gothic metal band Theatres des Vampires, as well as one of its founding members.
On Thorns I Lay is a Greek death-doom metal and gothic metal band founded in Athens in 1992. The group has gone through different stylistic facets throughout its career, starting with brutal death metal in their early days, then transitioning to a blackened death doom symphonic style with their first EP, and later embracing atmospheric doom-death in their early albums and later gothic metal with their subsequent albums. On Thorns I Lay is among the bands of the first major gothic doom wave that systematized the principle of contrasting vocals known as the "beauty and the beast" style that became popular in the late 1990s. Towards the end of the first part of their career in the early 2000s, they shifted towards a more stripped-down and introspective rock-metal style.
HDK is a musical project of Dutch guitarist Sander Gommans, best known as member, vocalist and one of the main composers of the now dissolved symphonic metal band After Forever.
Ancestral Legacy is a Norwegian gothic metal-band, started in 1995 as Permafrost.
"September Sun" is a single by gothic metal band Type O Negative from the 2007 album Dead Again. The nearly ten minute song was edited to just 4½ minutes for the single release. The single was released on January 14, 2008, ten months after the album's release on March 13, 2007. "September Sun" was the band's final single released before the passing of frontman Peter Steele.
Pallbearer is an American doom metal band from Little Rock, Arkansas, formed in 2008.
Beyond the Black is a German symphonic metal band formed in 2014 in Mannheim. Their debut album Songs of Love and Death became popular immediately after the release, and entered the German and Austrian national music charts.
