The 40 Essential Death Metal albums

The list needs a "one album per band" rule. That way it's got a better cross-section.
 
Agreed.

Also, if we're talking "essential" I think that's different than "best". Like, for Cannibal Corpse I'd argue Tomb of the Mutilated is the essential album, although personally Kill is my pick for their best.
 
In no specific order...


2 - Morbid Angel - Covenant
3 - Demigod - Slumber of Sullen Eyes
4 - Demilich - Nespithe
6 - Autopsy - Severed Survival
7 - Asphyx - The Rack
10 - Dead Congregation - Graves of the Archangels
15 - Immolation - Dawn of Possession
16 - The Chasm - Deathcult for Eternity
18 - Adramelech - Psychostasia
23 - Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated
25 - At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
27 - Darkthrone - Soulside Journey
29 - Ripping Corpse - Dreaming with the Dead
34 - Infester - To the Depths...in Degradation
36 - Decapitated - Winds of Creation
37 - Arghoslent - Galloping through the Battle Ruins
38 - Convulse - World Without God
I like that you put those in. Infester in particular.
 
+1. :kickass:

This list has to have None So Vile.

Exactly! That was THE Tech Death album of the 90's. It had the craziest drum performance on a Death Metal album for the time, and the vocals are the craziest I've heard in Death Metal. Lord Worm had a pretty varied vocal style. The gurgle/exhale (or whatever the fuck it is) in the Slit Your Guts slam is unbelievable...
 
YES. The Slit Your Guts low note is one of the most intense things I've ever heard.

Also I think the riffs deserve a lot of credit, AND the fact that Flo's drumming wasn't exactly perfect. It was fast and frenetic, but not perfectly on the beat, which gave the whole album this amazing chaotic feel.
 
YES. The Slit Your Guts low note is one of the most intense things I've ever heard.

Also I think the riffs deserve a lot of credit, AND the fact that Flo's drumming wasn't exactly perfect. It was fast and frenetic, but not perfectly on the beat, which gave the whole album this amazing chaotic feel.

The last 32 seconds of Benedictine Convulsions made me question if Lord Worm is even human. None So Vile, in my opinion, is easily on par with Altars of Madness, and should be on the list of essential albums easily. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know a damn thing about Technical Death Metal or Death Metal in general.
 
The last 32 seconds of Benedictine Convulsions made me question if Lord Worm is even human. None So Vile, in my opinion, is easily on par with Altars of Madness, and should be on the list of essential albums easily. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know a damn thing about Technical Death Metal or Death Metal in general.

Agreed. From the very beginning with the Exorcist 3 sample to the tail end, NsV is a top 5 death metal album. End of transaction. Right up there with, IMO, Pierced from Within, Altars of Madness, Tomb of the Mutilated, and Legion. Those are the pillars of the death metal castle in my eyes. Others are classics, others are awesome, but those five are the building blocks of the subgenre.
 
Agreed. From the very beginning with the Exorcist 3 sample to the tail end, NsV is a top 5 death metal album. End of transaction. Right up there with, IMO, Pierced from Within, Altars of Madness, Tomb of the Mutilated, and Legion. Those are the pillars of the death metal castle in my eyes. Others are classics, others are awesome, but those five are the building blocks of the subgenre.

Thank you for not shitting on that album. It is damn good. The production is sick and the riffs are heavy as hell. Generic to today's standards, yes, but at the time it was something different.
 
That's what I mean. If you're gonna make the "classics" of the genre, it's those five. Earlier bands were more "forming" the sound, and later bands/albums improved upon it, but if someone asked me "what is the death metal sound?" those are what I'd reach for.

Fuck it, I'll even say, right now, that Tomb of the Mutilated DEFINES death metal. Not my favorite, not the most complex or deep, but it's like a by-the-numbers example of the sound.
 
BTW, this should be on the list:

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Agreed. From the very beginning with the Exorcist 3 sample to the tail end, NsV is a top 5 death metal album. End of transaction. Right up there with, IMO, Pierced from Within, Altars of Madness, Tomb of the Mutilated, and Legion. Those are the pillars of the death metal castle in my eyes. Others are classics, others are awesome, but those five are the building blocks of the subgenre.

I'd pick Effigy over Pierced. I think Scream Bloody Gore deserves to be in the 5, ahead of Legion.
 
I've thrown a few personal favourites in because i can't help myself - they wouldn't make an "essential" list, but fuck it.

Carcass - Necroticism Descanting The Insalubrious
Carnage - Dark Recollections
Septic Flesh - Communion
Amorphis - Tales from the Thousand Lakes
Crematory - Denial
Cruciform - Avatism
Deadspawn - Emissions of Reality
Decrepit Birth - Diminishing Between Worlds
Desultory - Into Eternity
Funebrarum - Beneath the Columns of Abandoned Gods
Gorement - The Ending Quest
Grotesque - In The Embrace Of Evil
Purtenance - Member of Immortal Damnation
Ignivomous - Contragenesis
Massacre - From Beyond
Nocturnus - The Key
At the Gates - With Fear i Kiss the Burning Darkness
Bolt Thrower - Those Once Loyal
Pestilence - Testimony of the Ancients
StarGazer - A Great Work of Ages
The Chasm - Conjuration of the Spectral Empire
Therion - Beyond Sanctorum
Uncanny - Splenium For Nyktophobia
Winter - Into Darkness
Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
Morbid Angel - Gateways to Annihilation
Autopsy - Mental Funeral
Death - Human
Death - Scream Bloody Gore
Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris
Gorguts - From Wisdom to Hate
Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten
Incantation - Mortal Throne Of Nazarene
Demigod - Slumber of Sullen Eyes
Immolation - Dawn of Possession
Darkthrone - Soulside Journey
Runemagick - The Supreme Force of Eternity
Malevolent Creation - The Ten Commandments
Convulse - World Without God
Asphyx - The Rack
Dead Congregation - Graves of the Archangels
Merciless - The Awakening
Disembowelment - Transcendence Into The Peripheral
 
I'd pick Effigy over Pierced. I think Scream Bloody Gore deserves to be in the 5, ahead of Legion.

The thing with Death is that although they were a big player in forming the sound, none of their albums are "signature death metal" sounding. They're more a heavy metal band that dipped their toes in death metal. If you made a list of what makes DM sound like DM, not much would apply to their releases.
 
The thing with Death is that although they were a big player in forming the sound, none of their albums are "signature death metal" sounding. They're more a heavy metal band that dipped their toes in death metal. If you made a list of what makes DM sound like DM, not much would apply to their releases.

Death's first three albums are signature sounding Death Metal albums.

Side note# with fear I kiss the burning darkness really sucks.
 
I know I'll get hate for this, but I'd honestly put Molesting the Decapitated on such a list. Hear me out, I'm basing this on fact, not opinion. In reality, whether you like them or that style, they created one of the largest sub-genres of death metal and influenced just as many clone bands as Incantation or Suffocation, if not more.