Death Metal

[EspaDa]

@CASSETTEISGOD

And yet you don't like Brujeria!

 

[CiG]

@CASSETTEISGOD

And yet you don't like Brujeria!

When did I say that?

 

[Onder]

There used to be this @KafkaX guy who had immense knowledge about grindcore and stoner. A pity he's no longer in here.

Dammit, it's true I haven't seen the word "stoked" here in a while. Now you fucking reminded me of him.

 

[Krow]

Kafka was a cool guy. Bought me an Uncle Acid shirt and an Agalloch record at shows and wouldn’t even accept payment until I received them.

 

[EspaDa]

Don't know what happened to him. He has basically disappeared shortly before the forum's renovation.

 

[Onder]

Checking out Spectral Voice. Apparently their albums was one of the hyped ones in 2017. Need to check it out, so far I only listened to Blood Incantation's monster record several times, if we're talking death metal strictly.

Gimme time, I'll get there.

EDIT: Forgot the new Undergang. Also pleasant.

 

[CiG]

I'm over talking about things I don't like, it's a waste of energy, even though I could conceivably rant all day about the injustices in death metal today hahaha. Here, here's some cool tunes that I've been showing some friends lately, let's talk about that shit.

Some cool Russian tech death from 93, interesting stuff.



Blistering UK dm from the 90s.



Very riffy French death metal, bordering on brutal death, from 2000.



BIZARRE Colorado DM...nothing more I can really say.



I'm a huge fan of Centurian and Nox, so when I found out two guys that had played on Liber Zar Zax had had another band, I got excited. Not quite as fast, but a lot of super tasty riffs on this 97 demo, which sounds worlds better than the sadly terribly-produced full length.

These were all fucking killer man, thanks for sharing. The one that especially kicked ass to me was that British band Beyond Fear and it's reminded me that the British scene seems to be lacking in praise for the death metal it gave us (beyond the classics like Bolt Thrower, Benediction, Desecration, Evoke, Prophecy of Doom etc) so I thought I'd share some of my favourite British death metal:



Demented death metal, basically England's answer to Dr. Shrinker or Impetigo (kinda) and so basically my bread and butter. I fucking love this kinda multi-vocal styled gory deathgrind.



Definitely has that early Death and Cannibal Corpse vibe to me.



Rabid ripping death metal, sounds very classic and American like Deceased or some other frantic sounding paranoid death metal band.



Slicing, ever so slightly melodic death metal like Dismember's sophomore with Nocturnus, Morbid Angel and Asphyx thrown together onto a demo.



Reminds me SO MUCH of very early Pungent Stench when they were less groovy but still catchy. Thinking of that split LP they did as well as For God Your Soul.



Very bassy, kinda like Severed Survival or something, but overall sounding much more like Eaten Back to Life meets Into the Grave.



Very riffy and catchy, almost like early Unleashed but not quite THAT simplistic. Good stuff, hard to believe they never found much success outside of England.



Blasting, very tight sounding death metal that has that sound like they were on a mission to annihilate. No fat to trim anywhere, like early 2000's Cannibal Corpse ethically-speaking. @morguelord I think specifically you may quite like this one.



Vicious plodding death metal in the vein of Winter or Baphomet.



This fucking rules, I've never heard someone try to combine the jazzy whirlwind style of Atheist with early Absu or some shit. This really is inspiring shit to me, the folky "epic" parts are like Bathory seeping through too, but there's no mistake that this is death metal to me. Also if you want to hear truly brutal brain-melting drums check out their demo tape.



This is so awesome and evil, like a cool mixture of early My Dying Bride or early Paradise Lost but with a fast section that really fucking goes for your guts. Almost like Rottrevore?



Kinda reminds me of a more standard sounding Nocturnus with some Morbid Angel influences. This one is a very recent discovery so I'm not that familiar with it but the more I listen the more I like it.



All the early albums Martin van Drunen was on thrown together with a vocalist who wants to sound like Martin van Drunen and it's a good thing not a bad thing! This shit is heavy as fuck.



A pretty good mixture of the classic bands on the heavier end of things like Suffocation, Broken Hope, Obituary etc.



Brutal OSDM with a very primitive sound, perfect for a demo production.



All I can really say is this one is such a treat of weirdo ADHD death metal, throwing around Primus noodlings with funky Pungent Stench riff-offs, Benediction sections, crushing vocals etc.



Not sure what to compare this to. It's leaning technical death metal but not exactly, it kinda reminds me of later era Death, it's very groovy and riffy and catchy and modern I guess.



This one is a pretty weird (but not exactly weird-sounding) mixture of influences, I hear things like Necrophagia, Grave and Unleashed but then also Cryptic Slaughter or something. Great fun.



This is like Benediction if they hadn't opted for a much more mid-paced groovy sound in the mid-90's and instead just kept it brutal and riff-heavy. Absolutely killer and funny since I remember their previous demo sounding more like black metal or something.



Some very ancient obscure sounding shit with killer riffs, annihilating drums and evil vocals. Shame they went a bit retarded later on and lost all their edge.



Groovy, grindy death metal in the mid-90's Benediction style or Gorefest. Not for everyone but I don't mind it.



I really don't know who to compare this with, it has many marks of classic, standard death metal but then also some weird elements. Really interesting in the best way that demo tapes tend to be before all the originality is sapped out of the band so they can land a record deal and release something marketable, which never happened for these guys anyway. This is probably in my top 5 of death metal demos that came out of the U.K.



Less abrasive sounding (mostly due to the lack of a drum machine) Mortician style death metal with heavily distorted vocals. Pretty cool.

Yeah I know this kinda got outta hand, sorry to everyone's browsers.

 

[morguelord]

Y'all wanna see something sad and kinda worrying? This was the last message Kafka posted back in 2016 on an MDF thread...

Not going to make it this year

My life has taken a turn for the worse over the last few weeks...A lot of crucial and important events and people are sadly out of the picture now and its time to focus on getting my life back together.

 

[EspaDa]

Pretty enigmatic.

 

[morguelord]

Great post CIG, I actually only knew a few of those, which is a little rare for me to say, at the risk of sounding arrogant hahaha. I'll be sure to check some of those out soon, my to-listen list keeps growing and growing! Also, Lee Wollenshlaeger of Imperial Empire is now the new vocalist for Malevolent Creation, in case you guys hadn't heard. They posted a little teaser a while back and frankly it sounds a lot like Hate Eternal, which is fine with me! He also had a brief stint in the band Throne of Nails, which is some really great Morbid Angel/Immolation sounding shit.

 

[CiG]

Also, Lee Wollenshlaeger of Imperial Empire is now the new vocalist for Malevolent Creation, in case you guys hadn't heard.

Holy shit what a weird coincidence, I was just listening back to that Malevolent Creation teaser. I didn't even notice the connection!

 

[morguelord]

Honestly, I've never really delved into the old school UK scene, outside of some of the main ones, Bolt Thrower, Benediction, etc., and not liking grind has really ruled out two of the biggest in extreme music, Napalm Death and Carcass. I know a few of the older bands like Desecrator, Necrosanct, or Prophecy of Doom, but most UKDM that I'm familiar with is newer, brutal death metal, of which there's actually quite a bit of really good shit, so needless to say, I'm interested in hearing more from the past of UKDM.

 

[CiG]

Hopefully you find something to get into in my post and feel free to share some of the UKDM you're really psyched about right now, though I'm definitely no brutal death metal fanatic I do have the palette for it, for sure.

Since grind is a turn off for you I understand why Scum, Enslavement to Obliteration, Reek of Putrefaction, Symphonies of Sickness etc don't do anything for you but how do you feel about say, Napalm Death's Harmony Corruption, Carcass' Necroticism or even Heartwork?

 

[Dazed and Brutal]

@morguelord
might be a stretch, but how do you feel about this

 

[morguelord]

Heartwork is really about the only thing that ever stood out to me from either band. I do remember one of my buddies showing me a couple of the more death metal songs that ND did (possibly off Utopia Banished?), but I remember thinking it wasn't anything more than decent. Frankly I just don't care for the way they look at music, the way the use it. I fucking HATE political bands, whether I agree with their politics or not, and they focus a lot on politics, so fuck them.

I love Jenovavirus. Incredible demo, a shame they never did the full-length. Been hoping to find a copy of that demo for a decent price, but I'll probably never see it for less than a hundred bucks. You a Dripping fan?

 

[Dazed and Brutal]

I love Jenovavirus. Incredible demo, a shame they never did the full-length. Been hoping to find a copy of that demo for a decent price, but I'll probably never see it for less than a hundred bucks. You a Dripping fan?

I've only heard of them. I was pretty close-minded towards anything labeled Slam until very recently so it's high time I give it a spin.

edit:
for some reason I always think of this jabroni

 

[RadicalThrasher]

Very riffy and catchy, almost like early Unleashed but not quite THAT simplistic. Good stuff, hard to believe they never found much success outside of England.

Big fan of that Gomorrah album. Have it #6 on the best of 94 rankings.

 

[morguelord]

If you wanna get into slam, don't listen to anything from the past ten years, look back at the 90s and early-mid 2000s. Jenovavirus is a good one to start with, and the Dripping full length as well. A few other recommendations I would make....

90s-styled OG shit, mostly from the actual 90s:
Devourment-Molesting the Decapitated
Internal Bleeding-Voracious Contempt
Soils of Fate-Crime Syndicate
Afterbirth-Psychopathic Embryotomy
Repudilation-s/t compilation
Disconformity-Depravation of Stigma
Glossectomy-Impediments of Dysplasia
Eternal Suffering-Drowning in Tragedy
Dehumanized-Prophecies Foretold
Entorturement-Descend into Depravation
Vomit Remnants-Supreme Entity
Dyscrasia-Septical Stomach-Pumped Remnants
Sect of Execration-Baptized Through Blasphemy
Scattered Remnants-Inherent Perversion

2000s essentials:
Digested Flesh-The Answer to Infection
Abominable Putridity-In the End of Human Existence
Cephalotripsy-Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies
Epicardiectomy-Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration (some might call me crazy for this one, but this is literally the purest slamming album of all time, you cannot get any less intelligent than this and still call it "music")
Gorevent-Abnormal Exaggeration

I tried to keep it limited to bands that specialize almost purely in groove. Not a lot of speed or technicality in these, since you said "slam" specifically, rather than brutal death, but some like Scattered Remnants definitely straddle the line, they were just instrumental in the development of that proto-slam sound.

 

[Dazed and Brutal]

@morguelord @CASSETTEISGOD

Speaking of UK styled DM, y'all might fuck with this:

 

[morguelord]

Lately, I've been kind of doing a country-by-country evaluation of death metal on Facebook, just to alleviate boredom and hopefully learn some new bands. It's been pretty successful so far, lots of fun and interesting discussions about what comes from where, especially when I posted about Mexico, Antimo from Disgorge, Ravager, and a ton of others gave me a FUCKTON of links to some obscure Mexican DM. Anyway, Today's countries were Puerto Rico and Panama, and I only know two bands from each country, so I figured I'd share them with you guys, pretty good stuff.

Puerto Rico:
Encrypted, 2001 EP Drifting to the Impaled


Organic Infest, probably the most known band of the bunch. Classic 93 ugliness.


Panama:
Encryptor, not to be confused with Encrypted above.


Antagonized.