Artists like Poisonblack

Sentenced was a Finnish gothic metal band that played melodic death metal in their early years. The band formed in 1989 in the town of Muhos and broke up in 2005.

Entwine was a Finnish gothic metal band from Lahti, formed in 1995. They released seven studio albums before disbanding in 2019.

Tiamat is a Swedish metal band founded near Stockholm in 1990 and led by Johan Edlund. To date they have released ten studio albums. The band went through a number of stylistic changes in their earlier releases before settling on gothic metal. Under Edlund's leadership, the band would modify their style with influences ranging from Black Sabbath, Mercyful Fate, Candlemass, Pink Floyd and King Crimson combined with Sumerian lyrical themes. H. P. Lovecraft's writings also appear to have influenced Tiamat's thematology, a development consistent with a broader trend in death metal culture.

Sirenia is a Norwegian gothic metal band from Stavanger, founded in 2001 by Morten Veland.

Moonspell is a Portuguese gothic metal band formed in 1989. The group released their first EP, Under the Moonspell, in 1994 and followed up with their debut album, Wolfheart, a year later. They quickly became the most recognizable metal band from Portugal and a key figure in gothic metal.

Viikate is a Finnish heavy metal band from Kouvola, formed in 1996. The band is known for its melancholic lyrics, drawing inspiration from Finnish romance movies of the 1950s and Finnish singers of the era, including Reino Helismaa. Their style has been variously described as "Helismaa-metal", "wire metal", and "death schlagers".

Tristania was a Norwegian gothic metal band formed in 1996 by Morten Veland, Einar Moen and Kenneth Olsson. Tristania's music is usually classified as gothic metal. Their songs largely dealt with dark and sentimental topics, including depression, sadness, suicide, love, absence, and anger.

Stam1na is a Finnish metal band native of Lemi, South Karelia. Their music is arguably best described as thrash metal with some progressive metal, death, alternative and punk influences, and is sung in the Finnish language. The band mainly uses seven-string guitars on all albums except the first one where they used six-strings, and a few songs were composed for eight-string guitar on the eighth album Taival.

Mokoma is a Finnish thrash metal band formed in Lappeenranta, Finland, in 1996. Their music also has grindcore and death metal influences with traditional Finnish melancholy.