Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, double kick and/or blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and multiple tempo changes.

Building from the musical structure of thrash metal and early black metal, death metal emerged during the mid-1980s. Metal bands such as Slayer, Kreator, Celtic Frost, and Venom were very important influences to the crafting of the genre. Possessed and Death, along with bands such as Obituary, Carcass, Deicide, Sepultura, Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel are often considered pioneers of the genre. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, death metal gained more media attention as 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 a variety of subgenres.

Subgenres

It should be noted that cited examples are not necessarily exclusive to one particular style. Many bands can easily be placed in two or more of the following categories, and a band's specific categorization is often a source of contention due to personal opinion and interpretation.

• Melodic death metal: Scandinavian death metal could be considered the forerunner of "melodic death metal". Melodic death metal, sometimes referred to as "melodeath", is traditional heavy metal mixed with some death metal elements. Unlike most other death metal, melodeath usually features screams instead of growls, slower tempos, much more melody and even clean vocals are heard at rare times. Carcass is sometimes credited with releasing the first melodic death metal album with 1993's Heartwork, although Swedish bands In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, and At the Gates are usually mentioned as the main pioneers of the genre and of the Gothenburg metal sound.

• Technical death metal: Technical death metal and "progressive death metal" are related terms that refer to bands distinguished by the complexity of their music. Common traits are dynamic song structures, uncommon time signatures, atypical rhythms and unusual harmonies and melodies. Bands described as technical death metal or progressive death metal usually fuse common death metal aesthetics with elements of progressive rock, jazz or classical music. While the term technical death metal is sometimes used to describe bands that focus on speed and extremity as well as complexity, the line between progressive and technical death metal is thin. "Tech death" and "prog death", for short, are terms commonly applied to such bands as Nile, Edge of Sanity, and Opeth. Necrophagist and Spawn of Possession are known for a classical music-influenced death metal style. Death metal pioneers Death also refined their style in a more progressive direction in their final years. The Polish band Decapitated gained recognition as one of Europe's primary modern technical death metal acts.

• Death/doom: Death/doom is a style that combines the slow tempos and melancholic atmosphere of doom metal with the deep growling vocals and double-kick drumming of death metal. The style emerged during the late 1980s and gained a certain amount of popularity during the 1990s. It was pioneered by bands such as Autopsy, Winter, Asphyx, Disembowelment, Paradise Lost, and My Dying Bride. This style spawned the more extreme subgenre of funeral doom metal, which is even slower and more atmospheric.

• Goregrind, deathgrind and pornogrind are styles that mix the intensity, speed, and brevity of grindcore with the complexity of death metal. They differ from death metal in that guitar solos are often a rarity, shrieked vocals are more prominent as the main vocal style (though death growls are still utilized and some deathgrind bands make more use of the latter vocal style), and songs are generally shorter in length, usually between one and three minutes that keep with grindcore's tradition of short time lengths in songs. All three of these styles differs from grindcore in the more technical approach and less evident hardcore punk influence and aesthetics. Some notable examples of deathgrind are Brujeria, Cattle Decapitation, Cephalic Carnage, Pig Destroyer, Circle of Dead Children, Rotten Sound, GUT and Cock and Ball Torture.

• Deathcore: With the rise in popularity of metalcore, some of its traits have been incorporated into death metal. Bands such as Suicide Silence, Carnifex and Salt the Wound combine death metal with a variance of metalcore influence. Characteristics of death metal, such as fast drumming (including blast beats), down-tuned guitars,tremolo picking and growled vocals, are combined with the screamed vocals, melodic riffs and breakdowns of metalcore. Decibel magazine stated that "One of Suffocation's trademarks, breakdowns, has spawned an entire metal subgenre: deathcore."

• Death 'n' roll: is a style that combines death metal's growled vocals and highly distorted detuned guitar riffs along with elements of classic rock and roll and 1970s hard rock and heavy metal. Notable examples include Entombed, Gorefest and Six Feet Under .

• Blackened death metal: is a style that combines death metal and black metal. Examples of blackened death metal bands are Belphegor, Behemoth, Akercocke, and Sacramentum.

• Brutal death metal: is a style developed by combining certain aspects of the song structures of grindcore / goregrind with death metal but it should not be confused with deathgrind (grindcore that is very close in form to, and maintains the complexity of, death metal) because it has nothing to do with hardcore punk. The bands in this genre are often categorized as technical death metal, and as of now there is a sizable overlap between the two genres, with the boundary in many cases being negligible. Brutal death metal is associated with bands like Deeds of Flesh, Disgorge, Nile, Sect of Execration, Sarcolytic, Benighted Images of Violence, Aborted and Suffocation. The death grunts are very low-pitched and the lyrics are often, but not always gore related. In addition, the guitar riffs are usually slow chunky grooves or hyper fast and down-tuned, often with pinched harmonics. Typically, if guitar solos are played, they usually make large use of tremolo picking, varied arpeggios, and wailing harmonics. The drumlines are usually highly varied in style, ranging from slow rhythms to churning blast beats.

• Slam death metal is similar to standard brutal death metal, slam death metal differs in the focus shifting away from speed and blast beats and more toward groovy "slamming" mid - paced riffs although blast beats are used sporadically. Vocals, generally, register no higher than the standard death growl and are usually much lower, often with a "gurgle"-type sound. Guitar tuning is usually dropped B or lower with frequent pinch harmonics and the prevalence of guitar solos many times sacrificed in favor of crunching riffs. Technicality is often used but is not mandatory, while melody, if present at all, is kept to an absolute minimum. Regionally, slam death metal has been predominately associated with the United States, and more specifically, New York and Texas. However, recently, the genre has spread world-wide. Slam death is considered a style of brutal death metal, meaning that it shares many characteristics with the former. This means that every slam band is brutal, but not all brutal bands are slam. Bands usually associated with slam death metal are Devourment, Ingested, Abominable Putridity and Acrania

Other fusions and subgenres

There are other heavy metal music subgenres that have come from fusions between death metal and other non-metal genres, such as the fusion of death metal and jazz. Atheist and Cynic are two examples; the former went so far as to include jazz-style drum solos on albums, while the latter incorporated elements of jazz fusion. Nile have also incorporated with Egyptian music and Middle Eastern themes into their work, while Alchemist have incorporated psychedelia along with Aboriginal music. Some groups, such as Nightfall, Septic Flesh, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Eternal Tears of Sorrow, have incorporated keyboards and symphonic elements, creating a fusion of symphonic metal and death metal, sometimes referred to as symphonic death metal.

See also

• List of death metal bands
• Extreme metal

References

Notes