6. Soilwork

Soilwork have been plying their trade since 1996, and much of what we see in modern bands can be attributed to these Swedish metallers. They themselves deliver almost perfect melodic death metal; originally utilising clean vocals and piano parts at a time when it wasn’t commonplace within the genre. However, the manner in which they interweave each of those elements means that they’ve had a major impact on the majority of Metalcore and clean vocal wielding bands of the past couple of decades. Moreover, their songs are so damn catchy! Earlier this year, they released their eleventh (yes, eleventh!) studio album “Verkligheten”, but the first with Bastian Thusgaard on drums as permanent replacement to Dirk Verbeuren (who joined Megadeth). It’ll be interesting to see them play lots of this newest material live, which is a return to more classic melodic heavy metal roots, but as long as they play the awesome ‘Stålfågel’, I’ll have a grin like a cheshire cat.

By Matt Fraser