So, that Vallenfyre band featured in sadistic reviews is actually quite good. I mean, when I hear the "Swedish" guitar sound (even though it's really taken from the full-length debuts of Slaughter and Autopsy, but don't tell anyone that) nowadays, I get a bit apprehensive, since the old school Swedeath market is so oversaturated nowadays, but this band manages to transcend the neo-oldschool mentality to make some great music, based on effective narrative songwriting and a gloomy atmosphere. The songwriting is actually a lot closer to the first Paradise Lost album, in that it takes advantage of the memorable impact of punctuating long sequences of gloomy semi-melodic riffs with sudden bursts of Alfred Hitchcock-inspired dissonance.
Another cool neo-oldschool album that features members of older, forgotten bands would be Bombs of Hades, featuring the underrated songwriting and vocal talents of one Jonas Stålhammar, whom you may remember from his work in God Macabre and Utumno. These dudes apparently started out as a crust/grind type of thing, but they've since become a champion death metal act in the old school style. They still have a lot more of the '80s hardcore punk thing going on than most of these "new-old" bands who tend to devolve into writing rock songs with death metal aesthetics. The punk ethos keeps the songs short, fast, and direct with a ramshackle hardcore charm, creating an atmosphere not unlike the more Road Warrioresque "war metal" bands of the late '80s and early '90s, such as the first two Bolt Thrower albums and the Blasphemy back catalogue. The lead guitar work is particularly exciting; I think one of the old DLA reviews referred to some band's solos as being like "high speed slang" over a crunchy death metal base, and that would certainly apply to Bombs of Hades' music. Their solitary full-length actually makes for an effective, high energy palate cleanser after forty-five minutes of Vallenfyre's "sinking into filth" (thanks for that phrase, Disma) ambiance.