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.
Grindcore is an extreme fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, extreme metal, and industrial. Grindcore is considered a more noise-filled style of hardcore punk while using hardcore's trademark characteristics such as heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdriven bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, and vocals which consist of growls and high-pitched shrieks. Early groups like Napalm Death are credited with laying the groundwork for the style. It is most prevalent today in North America and Europe, with popular contributors such as Brutal Truth and Nasum. Lyrical themes range from a primary focus on social and political concerns, to gory subject matter and black humor.
Death was an American death metal band formed in Altamonte Springs, Florida in 1984 by guitarist and vocalist Chuck Schuldiner. Death is considered to be among the most influential bands in heavy metal and a pioneering force in the extreme metal subgenre of death metal. The band's debut album, Scream Bloody Gore, has been widely regarded one of the first death metal records, alongside the first records from Possessed and Necrophagia.
Scum is the debut studio album by English grindcore band Napalm Death, released on 1 July 1987 by Earache Records. The two sides of the record were recorded by two different lineups in sessions separated by about a year; the only musician in both incarnations was drummer Mick Harris. The two sides are very different, and the two taken together serve to bridge stylistic elements of heavy metal and punk rock. While the songs on the A-side are influenced heavily by hardcore punk and anarcho-punk, the vocals and lower-tuned electric guitars on the B-side anticipate subsequent developments in extreme metal. Loudwire put it in the list of the best 10 metal album of 1987.
Possessed is an American death metal band, originally formed in 1983. Noted for their fast style of playing and Jeff Becerra's growled vocals, they are often called the first band in the death metal genre, and paved the way for the 1980s Bay Area thrash metal scene, along with Metallica, Exodus, Testament and Death Angel. The band is also notable for featuring future Primus guitarist Larry LaLonde, who was the guitarist for Possessed from 1984 to 1987.
Scream Bloody Gore is the first full-length studio album by American death metal band Death, released on May 25, 1987, by Combat Records. Death through the 80s' spent most of their early career independently recording and releasing many demo and rehearsal tapes. It is considered by many to be "the first true death metal record". Chuck Schuldiner; the band’s founder and leader played guitar, bass and sang, Schuldiner also composed and wrote all tracks on the album.
Leprosy is the second studio album by American death metal band Death, released on August 12, 1988, by Combat Records. The album is notable in its different tone and quality from the band's 1987 debut, it is the first example of Scott Burns' work heard on many of the death metal and grindcore albums of that era. The cover is featured in Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. It is the first album to feature drummer Bill Andrews and the only one to feature guitarist Rick Rozz.
The Sound of Perseverance is the seventh and final studio album by American death metal band Death, released on August 31, 1998, by Nuclear Blast. This is the only album to feature guitarist Shannon Hamm, drummer Richard Christy, and bassist Scott Clendenin.
Repulsion is an American grindcore band from Flint, Michigan, founded in 1984.
Master is an American death metal band led by Paul Speckmann. The band was originally formed in Chicago, but later relocated to the Czech Republic.
Reek of Putrefaction is the debut album by British extreme metal band Carcass. It was released by Earache Records in July 1988.
Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal & Grindcore is a book by Albert Mudrian, the founding editor-in-chief of Decibel, a monthly magazine devoted to heavy metal music. The book was first published in 2004 by Feral House and details the evolution of the death metal and grindcore musical genres, from its beginnings as a small subculture exchanging compact cassettes to a genre where some artists reach million-dollar sales. A limited updated and expanded edition was published in hardcover in 2015 by Decibel Books. A further expanded and revised "death-luxe" edition was published in 2016 by Bazillion Points.
Ian Christe is an author, disc jockey and the publisher of Bazillion Points Books. He attended Mynderse Academy, The Clarkson School's Bridging Year, and Indiana University Bloomington (1987-1990).
Seven Churches is the debut album by American death metal band Possessed. The title of the album refers to the Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in the Book of Revelation. "The Exorcist" begins with producer Randy Burns' version of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, arranged and performed as it was in the 1973 horror film of the same name. Seven Churches is widely regarded as the first death metal album to exist, and About.com named it one of the ten essential albums of the genre.
Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal is a 2004 book by Ian Christe, documenting the history of heavy metal music and its origins.
Black Death are an American band who have been noted as the "first all-African-American heavy metal band". The group were also mentioned in Ian Christe's book Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, and mentioned in Rock 'n' Roll and the Cleveland Connection by Deanna R. Adams as "one of the only, if not the only, all-black metal bands in the country" in 1987.
Reign of Terror is a demo album by American death metal band Death, released in 1984. An interview of the band's lead vocalist and guitarist Chuck Schuldiner was later re-released in 1985 as “Reign of Terror II” which includes a set from October 1984.
Florida death metal is a regional scene and stylistic subdivision of death metal. Some of the most significantly pioneering and best-selling death metal acts emerged in Florida, especially in the Tampa Bay area. As a result, Tampa is unofficially known by many death metal fans as the "capital of death metal." The scene coalesced in the mid-1980s through early 1990s around the output of bands such as Death, Nasty Savage, Deicide, Monstrosity, Morbid Angel, Atheist, Obituary, and others. The producer Scott Burns and the studio Morrisound Recording were also instrumental in developing and popularizing the Florida scene. Some bands which originated outside of Florida, such as Malevolent Creation and Cannibal Corpse, relocated to the state in order to participate in this burgeoning scene. The Florida bands featured a more technical approach to the evolving death metal sound, a style which spread beyond the confines of the state, and some were instrumental in creating the progressive death metal subgenre. The death metal genre as a whole, including the Florida scene, declined in popularity in the second half of the 1990s, but many bands within the Florida scene persisted and the scene resurged in popularity in subsequent decades.
Scott Carlson is an American musician, who most notably worked as the lead vocalist and bassist of pioneering grindcore band Repulsion. Additionally, he was briefly the bassist and vocalist of pioneering death metal band Death, as well as bassist of doom metal band Cathedral, bassist and vocalist of Swedish death metal band Death Breath, vocalist of Japanese doom metal band Church of Misery, bassist of hardcore punk band Septic Tank, guitarist of garage rock band The Superbees and guitarist of From Beyond.
