Japan to be renamed Scandinavia?

Intro

To the average metal-head the phrase melodic death metal instantly conjures up a rudimentary map of Scandinavia most likely with images of vikings,lovely blonde women and Ikea dotted all across it. Although Scandinavia was not the birthplace of Melodeath, but yet again Great Britain take the crown  Metal and Grind Titans Carcasss are credited with it on their Heartwork album. Interestingly not only have these Scouser Grinders created melodic death metal, but they also created Goregrind! Makes me Very proud to be British!
 However the city of Gothenburg (Sweden) predominantly alongside other scattered bands across Denmark, Norway and Finland have made melodic death metal a big and ever popular sub genre. That is not to say that other countries have produced bad melodeath, take a look at Heartwork and the plenty of other good non-Scandinavian melodeath. There can be no denying that the genre itself is dominated by our Norse friends from across the Sea, they constantly are releasing new material en masse and have defined a majority of the blueprints used by their genre peers, and there we have the geomusical explanation finished.

Now we approach the purpose of this post and the title (suprise, suprise), to put it bluntly Japan seem to be overtaking Scandinavia on its own game. Bands like Intestine Baalism and Blood Stain Child, are either perfectly harmonizing brutality with melody perfectly or like the latter consistently releasing diverse and brilliant material. Perhaps the skull Gauntlet of Melodic Death should pass from the hand of the Viking to that of the Samurai (or Sumo Wrestler for humour). Japan is certainly giving Scandinavia a run for its money, and it would be interesting to see in 5/10 years whether it is the veterans or the new kids on the block who will be dominating the scene.

Unlike all my previous posts this post will not have a review, however reader do not fear! a review will commence immediately, I originally intended to review Intestine Baalism's Banquet in the Darkness, however as I was writing away I got caught up explaining the title (yet again!) and a brief history and geography explanation, so in the interest of being user friendly and my personal preference the review will be posted shortly afterwards as a separate post, however I will leave you with an excellent treat.
Grind Out

List of Melodic Death Metal Bands

A brief History (I didn't read this, but for those of you interested then Im sure it is informal)

Some Bloke's 50 Favourite Melodeath albums