Yea their vocals really aren't high pitched in the early albums, or at least not in a black metal sense (they're not super br00tal but they aren't shrieked either). I mean if that makes them more black metallish, then I guess Death or Atheist need to be termed blackened death as well. And also I was being generous with the production thing. Like Nasty said, most traditional black metal has far worse production, often to the point where the guitars sound like buzzing. The lyrics are the only thing that really relate more to black metal than to anything else, and even so, death metal lyrics were fairly diverse even at the time (from Cannibal Corpse/Carcass gore to Death/Cynic sorta-intellectual stuff to later Carcass/Morbid Angel political commentary), so it's not really a surprise if someone comes along and uses different lyrical content.
