Band members
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Timeline
Terrorizer | |
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| Also known as | Unknown Death (1985–1986) Decomposed (1986) |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
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| Members | Brian Werner Richie Brown David Vincent Pete Sandoval |
| Past members | Oscar Garcia Jesse Pintado Alfred "Garvey" Estrada Carlos Reveles Tony Norman Sam Molina Anthony Rezhawk Katina Culture Lee Harrison Fish |
| Website | terrorizergrindcore |
Terrorizer is an American grindcore band from Los Angeles, California. [2] It was originally formed in 1985 as Unknown Death by vocalist Oscar Garcia and guitarist Jesse Pintado. They would rename themselves Terrorizer after recruiting drummer Pete Sandoval, who remains the band's sole constant member throughout their discography, in 1986. The band's current lineup consists of Sandoval, bassist David Vincent, vocalist Brian Werner and guitarist Richie Brown. They are currently signed to Earache Records.
Terrorizer struggled to find success during their initial existence, and would disband in 1988 after Sandoval left to join Morbid Angel. They were briefly regrouped by David Vincent to record their highly influential debut album World Downfall (1989), before they split up again later that year when Pintado left to join Napalm Death. In 2005, Pintado and Sandoval reformed Terrorizer without Garcia, recording and released their second album Darker Days Ahead in 2006. [3] Terrorizer became inactive once again due to Pintado's death only five days after the album's release on August 27, 2006. After being revived by Sandoval in 2009, Terrorizer has released two more albums, Hordes of Zombies (2012) and Caustic Attack (2018), each featuring a different lineup.
In 1985, after a brief stint in a band called Majesty, Oscar Garcia began searching around the Los Angeles area for musicians he could form a band with which he could front as both a vocalist and guitarist. [4] Garcia first met guitarist Jesse Pintado, and after helping each other with their guitar skills, the two formed a thrash metal band known as Unknown Death. [4] [5] Afterwards, Garcia and Pintado recruited bassist Alfred "Garvey" Estrada and a drummer mononymously known as "Fish". [6]
Initially taking inspiration from thrash metal acts such as Slayer and Celtic Frost, [4] Garcia and Pintado would soon decide to take Unknown Death in a faster direction, after Pintado received a demo tape featuring what would become the A-side to Napalm Death's Scum (1987). [7] Garcia recalled: "I remember one day, [Pintado] said, 'Check this out'. And when I listened to it for the first time, I called him and said, 'That's it, that's the way I wanna play'." [7] Fish was unable to play to the speeds that Garcia and Pintado wanted, and he soon left the band. [7] Upon the recommendation of a friend, drummer Pete Sandoval auditioned for Unknown Death and was instantly hired. "The first beat that [Sandoval] played was a superfast beat, and when we heard that, Jesse and I looked at each other and we looked at Pete, and we were like, 'Hey man, you wanna join this band?' And he said, 'You guys haven't seen me play.' And I said, 'We've heard enough'." [8] Sandoval's drumming style complemented Unknown Death's older songs, and Garcia felt that "everything just started to click" musically when he joined the band. [4] [5] Unknown Death soon changed their name to Decomposed, and then to Terrorizer, after a song of the same name by Master. [4] [5]
Having attainted a stable line-up, Terrorizer began playing around the Los Angeles area, performing their first show at the Hoover Recreation Centre on March 21, 1987. [5] The band released four rehearsal/demo tapes during 1987 that were circulated throughout the underground tape-trading scene. [5] [N 1] Terrorizer were limited to performing in small venues or at backyard parties for most of their initial existence, [10] and struggled to attract record label interest due to the speed and intensity of their music, which made them unappealing to both the heavy metal and punk rock audiences of the Los Angeles area. [11] In the summer of 1988, with both interest in and activity within Terrorizer waning, Sandoval was presented with the opportunity to join the Florida-based death metal band Morbid Angel by the band's bassist, David Vincent. [12] [13] [N 2] He would subsequently announce to the other members of Terrorizer during a band rehearsal with new bassist Carlos Reveles (who Garcia had played with back in Majesty) that he was leaving to join Morbid Angel, resulting in their disbandment. [14] Garcia recalled of Sandoval's departure: "At the time I thought we [Terrorizer] were just about ready to do an album. Then one day out of the blue at a practice, Pete just busted out saying that he was leaving the band and that he was moving out of state. And that was pretty much it for us then. It was like we never had a chance." [14]
In early 1989, whilst he was in England delivering the master tapes of Morbid Angel's debut album Altars of Madness to the offices of Earache Records, David Vincent discussed Terrorizer with the label's founder, Digby Pearson. [15] [16] Pearson told Vincent that Terrorizer had been signed to Earache before Morbid Angel were, but that he had struggled to get the band to record an album due to its members being based in differing locations. [17] Vincent subsequently offered to regroup Terrorizer to record an album, should Earache be interested in releasing one. [15] [17]
In April 1989, Garcia and Pintado travelled to Tampa, Florida, where both Vincent and Sandoval were based, to record Terrorizer's debut album World Downfall . [5] The band spent two weeks of "[rehearsing] all the songs like crazy" to make them sound as tight as they could be (according to Vincent) [17] before going into Morrisound Recording, where they recorded and mixed the album in the space of three days with engineer Scott Burns. [5] [17] [18] According to Burns, the album was recorded on a budget of $1,200. [19] Pintado played all of the guitars on the album at Garcia's insistence, as he had not played guitar for six months and did not want to hold up recording. [20] Furthermore, as Terrorizer did not have a bassist at the time and because Pintado and Garcia did not have any bass equipment, Vincent ended up playing bass on the album. [5] [18] Although he is credited as both the producer of World Downfall and Terrorizer's bassist in the album's liner notes, [21] Vincent later claimed that he "just played on the record" and was not an official member of the band (at that point). [17]
World Downfall was released via Earache on November 13, 1989. [22] Shortly before the album's release, Pintado left Terrorizer to join Napalm Death, before the start of the band's Grindcrusher Tour in November 1989. [23] With Vincent and Sandoval refocusing their attention on Morbid Angel—who were also participating in the Grindcrusher Tour as a supporting act (along with Carcass and Bolt Thrower)—Terrorizer disbanded for a second time. [23] [24] Garcia subsequently returned to his other band, Nausea. [25] In the 2018 documentary film Slave to the Grind: A Film About Grindcore, Sandoval said of Terrorizer's disbandment:
"There was not a lot of interest in Terrorizer, and plus, these other bands, for us, were big bands, y'know. Morbid Angel, they had like, a beginning of a history, you know what I mean? So it was something cool, nice for me to join. And then Napalm Death, another big band... so it was what it was supposed to be, man." [26]
World Downfall has retrospectively been seen as one of the classics of early grindcore. [27] Morbid Angel would later incorporate the album track "Dead Shall Rise" into their setlists during their tours in support of Blessed Are the Sick (1991), which Vincent said the band were happy to do as "half of Morbid Angel had been in Terrorizer". [24] Although Terrorizer were still under contract for another album with Earache, attempts to make another album with the World Downfall line-up of the band were unsuccessful due to its members' conflicting schedules. [5] [28] Garcia claims not to have talked to Sandoval since Terrorizer's disbandment. [29]
In 2005, after leaving Napalm Death, Pintado agreed to reform Terrorizer with Sandoval to release another album, Darker Days Ahead , through Century Media Records in August 2006. Garcia declined to join the reunion due to creative differences with Pintado, who wanted him to leave Nausea—he was subsequently replaced by Anthony Rezhawk. [25] [30] Tony Norman also joined the band on guitar and bass; Pintado had been recording and playing shows with Rezhawk's band Resistant Culture and asked him to join Terrorizer. Pintado would die five days after the album's release due to liver failure. [31] [32]
In 2009, Terrorizer released a new demo track, "Hordes of Zombies", on its MySpace page. [33] In June 2011, Terrorizer signed to Season of Mist, and released its third album, Hordes of Zombies , on February 28, 2012. [34] Resistant Culture guitarist Katina Culture replaced Pintado and David Vincent rejoined on bass. [35]
In November 2012, Sandoval announced that Terrorizer started writing new material for their next album. [36] The fourth album Caustic Attack was released in 2018 under The End Records. [37]
On August 9, 2021, Earache Records announced a new worldwide record deal with Terrorizer, as well as revealing that a new album was in the works. [38]
On January 22, 2023, Sandoval announced the split of Terrorizer and would shift his attention to his other band I Am Morbid. [39] However, on August 12, Sandoval reformed Terrorizer with Vincent, alongside former Vital Remains vocalist Brian Werner and guitarist Richie Brown. [40] [41]
In 2014, Oscar Garcia was invited by Jesse Pintado's sister to put together a new lineup of Terrorizer (his version known as Terrorizer LA or TLA) for a festival celebrating what would have been Jesse Pintado's 45th birthday. [42] [43] He asked fellow Nausea member Leon del Muerte (Murder Construct) to play guitar, and shortly afterward Cosmo Reveles, Rick Cortez (Sadistic Intent) and Mike Caffell (Dreaming Dead, Exhausted Prayer) were recruited to fill out the band. The band continues to play under the Terrorizer LA name.
Before The Downfall, a collection of demos and unreleased material, was released by FOAD Records in 2015.
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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, shouts 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.
Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. None of the band's original members have been in the group since 1986, but since Utopia Banished (1992), the lineup of bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris, drummer Danny Herrera and lead vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway has remained consistent through most of the band's career. From 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado and Mitch Harris as replacements for guitarist Bill Steer. Following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece.
Morbid Angel is an American death metal band based in Tampa, Florida, formed in 1983 by guitarist, primary composer and sole remaining original member Trey Azagthoth, vocalist and bassist Dallas Ward, and drummer Mike Browning. Widely considered one of the most influential bands in the genre and important in the transition of death metal from its thrash metal roots, they were one of the first bands to incorporate guttural vocals, up-tempo blast beats, multiple tempo changes and a dark atmosphere. They have been described as one of "the most influential and emulated bands in death metal", alongside Obituary, Death, Cynic, Autopsy and Deicide, and have been cited as an influence by many later bands. They were also the first death metal band to experience mainstream success in connection with being signed to Giant Records in 1992, heavy rotation of their music videos on MTV, and having the music video for the song "God of Emptiness" shown on an episode of Beavis and Butt-Head. Their first three albums – Altars of Madness (1989), Blessed Are the Sick (1991), and Covenant (1993) – are considered classics in the death metal genre.
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 albums of 1987.
Harmony Corruption is the third studio album by British grindcore band Napalm Death, released in 1990 on Earache Records.
Earache Records is a British independent record label, music publisher and management company founded by Digby Pearson in 1985, based in Nottingham, England, with offices in London and New York. The label helped to pioneer extreme metal by releasing early grindcore and death metal records between the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Its roster has since diversified into more mainstream guitar music, working with bands such as Rival Sons, the Temperance Movement, Blackberry Smoke, Scarlet Rebels and the White Buffalo. The company also hosted the 'Earache Express' stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2017 and 'The Earache Factory' at Boomtown 2018. The label's logo is a homage to Thrasher magazine, as Pearson was a skateboard culture enthusiast.
Pedro Rigoberto "Pete" Sandoval is a Salvadoran-born American drummer, best known for his work with extreme metal bands like Morbid Angel and Terrorizer.
Jesus "Jesse" Ernesto Pintado Andrade was a Mexican-American guitarist best known as a guitarist for the British grindcore band Napalm Death.
David Justin Vincent, also known as Evil D, is an American musician who is best known as the former lead vocalist and bassist for the death metal band Morbid Angel, as well as the bassist for Terrorizer and Genitorturers.
Covenant is the third official full-length album by Florida-based death metal band Morbid Angel. It was first released in Europe on June 1, 1993, through Earache Records, and in North America on June 22, 1993, through Giant Records. Covenant was the band's breakthrough album due to their contract with Giant Records and its widespread exposure on MTV's Headbangers Ball, as well as the music video for 'God of Emptiness' appearing on Beavis and Butt-head. It is frequently described as one of the greatest death metal albums of all time, and a landmark album in the genre, influencing countless future metal bands, including Portal and Dead Congregation. According to Nielsen Soundscan, Covenant was the best selling death metal album as of 2003, with sales of over 150,000 in the United States alone. In 2017, Rolling Stone named it the 75th best metal album of all time.
"You Suffer" is a song by English grindcore band Napalm Death, released on the band's debut studio album, Scum (1987). The song is precisely 1.316 seconds long. The song was written by Nicholas Bullen, Justin Broadrick and Mick Harris during the March 1986 demo sessions for From Enslavement to Obliteration.
Sore Throat were a British crust punk band formed in Huddersfield in 1987. They are known for being one of the earliest exponents of the grindcore subgenre known as "noisecore", as well as for launching the careers of several prominent members of the British heavy metal community.
Altars of Madness is the debut studio album by American death metal band Morbid Angel, released on May 12, 1989, by Combat Records/Earache Records. The album was recorded in December 1988 at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida. The album is one of the earliest examples of death metal and is considered to have helped pioneer the sound along with Possessed's Seven Churches in 1985 and Death's Scream Bloody Gore in 1987, and set a new precedent for heaviness and extremity, both musically and lyrically. It is one of the most celebrated albums in death metal, and one of the most influential heavy metal albums of all time.
Fear, Emptiness, Despair is the fifth studio album by British grindcore band Napalm Death, released on 9 May 1994. Napalm Death's inclusion on the Mortal Kombat soundtrack brought significant exposure to the band and this album, alongside the fact that the band's label Earache had formed a partnership with Columbia Records which allowed the album to disseminate to a wider audience. RAW magazine listed Fear, Emptiness, Despair as one of the essential album of the 1990s.
World Downfall is the debut studio album by American grindcore band Terrorizer, released on November 13, 1989, through Earache Records. It was produced by David Vincent of Morbid Angel, who also performed bass on the album, and engineered by Scott Burns at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida.
Terrorizer was an extreme music magazine published by Dark Arts Ltd. in the United Kingdom. It was released every four weeks with thirteen issues a year and featured a "Fear Candy" covermount CD, a twice yearly "Fear Candy Unsigned" CD, and a double-sided poster.
Darker Days Ahead is the second album by American deathgrind band Terrorizer. It was released on August 22, 2006, by Century Media, seventeen years after their 1989 debut World Downfall. Darker Days Ahead is Terrorizer's final album recorded with guitarist Jesse Pintado, who died five days after its release due to liver failure.
Grindcrusher is a CD/LP released by Earache Records in 1989, showcasing nine of the label's bands. It contained a number of pioneer grindcore and death metal groups such as Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Morbid Angel, Carcass and Repulsion. This compilation was later rereleased in 1991 as Grindcrusher: the Ultimate Earache, augmented with 14 extra tracks by the likes of Entombed and Nocturnus.
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