death metal

The tradition & historical record

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, featuring double kick and blast beat techniques; minor keys or atonality; abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes; and chromatic chord progressions. The lyrical themes of death metal may include slasher film-style violence, political conflict, religion, nature, philosophy, true crime and science fiction. Building from the musical structure of thrash metal and early black metal, death metal emerged during the mid-1980s. Bands such as Venom, Celtic Frost, Slayer, and Kreator were important influences on the genre's creation. Possessed, Death, Necrophagia, Obituary, Autopsy, and Morbid Angel are often considered pioneers of the genre. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, death metal gained more media attention as a popular genre. Niche record labels like Combat, Earache, and Roadrunner began to sign death metal bands at a rapid rate. Since then, death metal has diversified, spawning several subgenres. Melodic death metal combines death metal elements with those of the new wave of British heavy metal. Technical death metal is a complex style, with uncommon time signatures, atypical rhythms, and unusual harmonies and melodies. ¹

English extreme metal band Venom, from Newcastle, crystallized the elements of what later became known as thrash metal, death metal and black metal, with their first two albums Welcome to Hell and Black Metal, released in late 1981 and 1982, respectively. Their dark, blistering sound, harsh vocals, and macabre, proudly Satanic imagery proved a major inspiration for extreme metal bands. Another highly influential band, Slayer, formed in 1981. Although the band was a thrash metal act, Slayer's music was more violent than their thrash contemporaries Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax. Their breakneck speed and instrumental prowess combined with lyrics about death, violence, war, and Satanism won Slayer a cult following. According to Mike McPadden, Hell Awaits, Slayer's second album, "largely invent[ed] much of the sound and fury that would evolve into death metal." According to AllMusic, their third album Reign in Blood inspired the entire death metal genre. It had a big impact on genre leaders such as Death, Obituary, and Morbid Angel. Possessed, a band that formed in the San Francisco Bay Area during 1983, is described by AllMusic as "connecting the dots" between thrash metal and death metal with their 1985 debut album, Seven Churches. While attributed as having a Slayer influence, current and former members of the band had actually cited Venom and Motörhead, as well as early work by Exodus, as the main influences on their sound. Although the group had released only two studio albums and an EP in their formative years, they have been described by music journalists and musicians as either being "monumental" in developing the death metal style, or as being the first death metal band. ¹

By 1989, many bands had been signed by eager record labels wanting to cash in on the subgenre, including Florida's Obituary, Morbid Angel and Deicide. This collective of death metal bands hailing from Florida are often labeled as "Florida death metal". Morbid Angel pushed the genre's limits both musically and lyrically, with the release of their debut album Altars of Madness in 1989. The album "redefined what it meant to be heavy while influencing an upcoming class of brutal death metal." According to Jason Birchmeier of AllMusic, "Venom and Slayer redefined the extent to which a metal band could align itself with all things evil during the beginning of the decade, but Morbid Angel made these two groups sound like children's music." ¹

Following the original death metal innovators, new subgenres began to develop the end of the decade, such as melodic death metal. Death released their fourth album Human in 1991, which has become a hallmark in technical death metal. Death's founder Schuldiner helped push the boundaries of the genre with uncompromising speed and technical virtuosity, combining intricate rhythm guitar work with complex arrangements and emotive guitar solos. Earache Records, Relativity Records and Roadrunner Records became the genre's most important labels, with Earache releasing albums by Carcass, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, and Entombed, and Roadrunner releasing albums by Obituary and Pestilence. Although these labels had not been death metal labels, they initially became the genre's flagship labels at the beginning of the 1990s. In addition to these, other labels formed as well, such as Nuclear Blast, Century Media, and Peaceville. ¹

In the 2000s, a number of bands in the hardcore punk scene, including Black Breath and Trap Them began to incorporate elements of death metal into their sound. This was followed by a wave of bands expanding upon the death-doom style of Incantation while incorporating elements of ambient music, including Dead Congregation and Necros Christos. In the 2010s, a movement of bands reviving the sound of original 1980s death metal emerged, termed the "New Wave of Old School Death Metal". One of the earliest groups in this wave was Horrendous, who formed in 2009, who along with Tomb Mold took a progressive take the genre. Tomb Mold, Necrot, Undergang and Blood Incantation were some of the earliest bands to gain traction in the 2010s, with the COVID-19 pandemic amplifying the amount of attention drawn to the movement, through Cryptic Shift, Slimelord and Vaticinal Rites. In a 2022 article by MetalSucks writer Christopher Krovatin stated "Right now, as a music journalist, all I hear about is death metal." In the UK, this movement became the "New Wave of British Death Metal", fronted by Mortuary Spawn, Vacuous and Celestial Sanctuary, this name being coined by Tom Cronin, of Celestial Sanctuary, in order to separate these hardcore-indebted bands from the country's prior movements. The earliest bands in this wave were Cruciamentum and Grave Miasma. A large part of the New Wave of Old School Death Metal was death metal bands who originated from the hardcore scene, some of which merge elements of hardcore into their style. Xibalba and Fuming Mouth were two of the earliest groups, with the wave being solidified by Gatecreeper, 200 Stab Wounds, Creeping Death, Sanguisugabogg and Kruelty. ¹

The setup most frequently used within the death metal genre is two guitarists, a bass player, a vocalist, and a drummer often using "hyper double-bass blast beats". Although this is the standard setup, bands have been known to occasionally incorporate other instruments such as electronic keyboards. Death metal vocals are referred to as death growls, which are coarse roars/snarls. ¹

Cited examples are not necessarily exclusive to one particular style. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Death metal”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

death metal is extreme subgenre of heavy metal music, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 29 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²