Allegaeon‘s music is so heavy and technically intricate that it needs a bit of comic relief. That’s why the technical melodeath band from Fort Collins, Colorado are as well known for their wacky and lighthearted videos as they are for their epically crushing compositions. There is something oddly satisfying about a band whose songs deal with subjects as weighty as astrophysics, trigonometry, extraterrestrial life, and stem cell research making goofy videos. In the clip for their recent single “1.618” (a song about the so-called “golden ratio”), they mocked the ridiculous modern metal scene by spinning the “wheel of subgenres” and then morphed hilariously into the corresponding fashions.

In the video for today’s Massive Metal Monday track “Threshold of Perception,” they visit the beach for a little fun, sun and death metal. You ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen a blast beat on children’s sand pails or a death metal singer brushing his teeth while growling gutturals! So check it out, crank it up, and enjoy. And, if you dig what you’re hearing, pick up a copy of Allegaeon’s brilliant new album Elements of the Infinite on Metal Blade Records.

When In Flames burst onto the world metal stage in the mid-’90s, they helped introduce the world to melodic death metal. It was a sound that would come to be known as “the Gothenburg sound,” taking the name of the city in Sweden that spawned In Flames, Dark Tranquility, At The Gates, and many other early architects of the genre. Over the course of 20 years and eleven studio albums, In Flames has grown to be one of metal’s biggest and most influential bands spawning countless imitators. The band’s sound has evolved beyond the melodeath genre that they helped create, but the name In Flames will always be synonymous with “the Gothenburg Sound.”

Here, from their legendary fourth album, Clayman, is In Flames with the official video for “Only For The Weak.”

Watch the video here, below.

At The Gates, along with contemporaries In Flames, are considered to be the originators of the Gothenburg (Sweden) sound, a style that would define the genre of melodic death metal (or melodeath, as it is often known).

In Flames would go on to become one of the biggest metal bands in the world while slowly evolving into a pop metal machine. Despite releasing several critically acclaimed albums, At The Gates would fail to find widespread commercial success and disbanded in 1996. Decibel magazine called the band’s final album, Slaughter of the Soul, “the most influential death metal record of the decade.”

At The Gates reformed in 2007 and has been touring sporadically ever since. Much to the delight of fans, the band is set to release their first album in 19 years on October 27, 2014. The album is called At War With Reality and, after much hype, we’re finally getting to hear the title track of the record.

Listen to the song “At War With Reality” here below.