Death Metal : when extreme takes sense

Hey !

Today, we’re going to talk about heavy, violent, and extreme music. Here, we really get into the hard part, guys. And this genre is DEATH METAL!

Follow me and let’s dive together in a dark, aggressive, and even gore universe. Sensitive soul abstains!

DISCLAIMER: This post is based on some of my knowledge and is backed up and supplemented by research done before its writing. You can find the sources at the bottom of the page.

Note: Bands/ artists I quote in the posts, I only mention them to give you an idea of the sounds you find in the different genres. But I want to be clear that over time it has become more and more complicated to do it with style blends and so on.
In addition, my goal is not to categorize artists, but to present them to you so that you discover the different possibilities that there are in rock and metal. And even make you enjoy those genres.

WHAT IS DEATH METAL ?

Death metal is a subgenre (extreme) of metal. He appeared in the mid-80s in the USA, but he quickly moved internationally with a certain interest in this genre in Europe and more particularly in the Nordic countries. It can also be found in South America.

DEATH METAL ORIGINS

Death takes its source mainly in trash metal but also hardcore punk. Indeed, several bands paved the way for what was to come:

Slayer is the only one in the Big Four of Thrash Metal bands to address such provocative themes as the terrible acts of Auschwitz-Birkenau or Satanism. All this in a frontal way.
Venom also very quickly turned to lyrics with occult themes.
Possessed had titled their first demo Death Metal in 1984.

But it’s to another band that we attribute the creation of the real first album of Death metal. And the name of it will surprise you (you have to hear the sarcasm there 😊). The band creator/ «godfather» of Death metal is called… Death.

DEATH METAL CHARACTERISTICS

The first and most obvious feature is the dark, violent, and gory side of the genre. Not everyone will like it, it’s a fact.

Music and instrumentation

It’s a bidding war genre. And you can hear it!

On drums, blast beats appear. For the drummer, this practice is sports and requires a lot of energy. From now on, the rhythmic basis of the songs is 4 times faster than traditional hard rock. We must now offer a clear game in all this «noise». This is where the Noise gate arrives.

Blast Beat: Drum technique consisting of a superimposition of semiquavers performed at feet and hands at a high tempo. It is used in extreme music. (source : la langue française)

Noise Gate: audio processor that controls the excess or unwanted noise present in an audio signal. Kind of barrier to cut the attack of the resonance and avoid creating a sound loop producing a larsen effect. (sources: emastered and Une Histoire Musicale du rock)

For guitarists, the same problem of sharpness arises. To offer a game that is both fast and precise, they use palm mutting and mostly power chords. Guitars are usually tuned several tones lower. All this coupled, it is what we can commonly call chung. Because it sounds like chung-chung-chung-chung-chung. It’s a percussive sound. At the same time, we’re looking for a very rough sound.

The bass, on the other hand, is very deep. And sometimes you hardly hear it. Maybe that’s where the debate comes from: “Does a band really need a bass player?”

I won’t dwell on that.

Singing

99% of the time, the vocals will be screams. Mostly growls (or false chord scream). The goal is to go as low and as dirty as possible. It’s then good to specify that it’s very complicated (not to say impossible) to understand the lyrics if you don’t have them in front of you or if you don’t know them.

Which is great for me, because I like death music, but I hate gore etc. So I just listen to the music without worrying about the rest 😜.

Production

The typical early death metal sound production takes place in Tampas, Florida (USA). Especially at the Morrisound studio. The sound is very produced, clean, with many middle frequencies, a sharp drum sound, and an almost inaudible bass. This sound will serve as a basis for what the genre will become.

Diffusion

In the very beginning, the distribution of songs was hand to hand, through a small market of cassettes of the genre. In the end, more elaborate structures emerged.

Well today, with the internet, it’s easy to find a death metal album.

As for the gigs, at the very beginning of the genre, venues refused to host them because of the violence and fights that occurred in the public.

Some venues were doing business with Death Metal, but the latter were small, with a bad sound system and no stage.

Most of the time, the bands performed in gardens, halls, or any random places that accepted them.

Lyrics

Without surprise, lyrics of the genre are dark, creepy, and gory… but not only!

Themes covered include (of course) death, violence, Satanism, the occult, horror, and all nihilistic philosophy.

But other death bands pick topics like the environment, human psychology (often the dark side), the meaning of life, science fiction, dystopia, history, technology, and more.

Album covers

Death metal album covers also play an important role in the genre. The art that is chosen brings another dimension, another depth to the universe of artists.

DEATH METAL BANDS

In addition to the above-mentioned names, we can include :

Morbid Angel, Obituary, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Arch Enemy, Crypta, Gojira, Opeth, Behemoth, Nervosa among others.

Caricature Cannibal Corpse, Death metal, Cannibal corpse drawing

EVOLUTION

Death metal still exists in force. It has influenced many artists. It’s a genre with many subcategories. Moreover, from the beginning of the genre, there were sub-genres such as brutal death metal, melodic death metal, technical death metal, progressive death metal or grindcore.

Today, we can add a very well-known subgenre which is deathcore.

And the genre never ceases to influence artists of other genres of metal. I am thinking in particular of metalcore, symphonic metal, and nu-metal.

That’s what closes this post!

You can find a playlist dedicated to death just below.