Top Ten Technical Death Metal Albums

[RedinTheSky]

1. Suffocation - Pierced From Within
2. Inferi - Path Of Apotheosis
3. T.O.O.H -Order and Punishment
4. Stargazer - Scream That Tore The Sky
5. Necrophagist - Onset Of Putrefication
6. Alustrium - Tunnel to Eden
7. Psycroptic - Scepter Of Ancients
8. Archspire - Relentless Mutation
9. Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
10. Anata - Conductor's Departure

Honorable Mentions :
Heironymus Bosch - Artificial Emotions
Gorguts - Obscura
Demilich - Nespithe
Gorod - Leading Vision

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Gorguts - The Erosion of Sanity
Gorguts - Obscura

Death - Symbolic
Obscura - Cosmogenesis
Obscura - Omnivium
Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten
Suffocation - Breeding the Spawn
Decapitated - Winds of Creation
Gorod - Leading Vision
Gorod - Process of a New Decline
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Atheist - Elements
Spawn of Possession - Noctambulant
Spawn of Possession - Incruso
Crytoposy - Blasphemy Made Flesh
Cryptopsy - None So Vile
Pestilence - Spheres
Origin - Antithesis
Psycroptic - Ob(servant)

 

[Sedition and Pockets]

Fuck I'm old.

And I fucked it up royally the first time. No Monstrosity? The fuck was I thinking?

Afflicted Prodigal Sun
Atheist Unquestionable Presence
At the Gates The Red in the Sky is Ours
Cadaver In Pains
Crimson Massacre The Luster of Pandemonium
Demilich Nespithe
Disaffected Vast
Gorguts The Erosion of Sanity
Monstrosity Imperial Doom
Suffocation Effigy of the Forgotten

 

[Allfader]

Does Cynic - Focus count as tech death? if Atheist can make it, Cynic sure as hell can, right?

Cynic - Focus
Death - Symbolic/TSOP
Arsis - A Celebration of Guilt
Cryptopsy None So Vile
Necrophagist - Onset Of Putrefaction
Augury - Fragmentary Evidence
Quo Vadis - Defiant Imagination
Cannibal Corpse - Bloodthirst
Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten
Obscura - Cosmogenesis

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Qua Vadis

Fragmentary Evidence is cool but far from a top 10 album imo. Their last album was pretty damn solid too, have you checked it out?

I would have definitely included Colored Sands and From Wisdom to Hate but i wanted to keep it at 2 a band at the most. By far the greatest technical death metal band imo.

 

[Allfader]

Qua Vadis

Fragmentary Evidence is cool but far from a top 10 album imo. Their last album was pretty damn solid too, have you checked it out?

No man, but I should.

I placed Fragmentary on top because I just fucking love avantgarde-driven music in general terms and that album is the tech death equivalent of Arcturus. There are countless of standard tech death albums that are really competent, but that shit is pretty unique AND good.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

No man, but I should.

I placed Fragmentary on top because I just fucking love avantgarde-driven music in general terms and that album is the tech death equivalent of Arcturus. There are countless of standard tech death albums that are really competent, but that shit is pretty unique AND good.

I actually think Concealed is a tad bit better and their new album is probably my favorite. I dont think they're sound is that unique tbh and they share/shared a lot of similarities with other bands in the subgenre like Arkaik, Beyond Creation, Archspire, Inanimate Existence, The Faceless, etc. Anyway, here are a few songs form their latest album ...




the whole album is worth checking out since imo it has no weak points and most of the tracks are equally good. One of the top tech-death releases of 2018

 

[CiG]

Crimson Massacre The Luster of Pandemonium

This record rules. Such an oddball production too.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Monstrosity fucking rule but Imperial Doom is pretty much an old school death metal album and doesn't belong here. And The Red in the Sky Is Ours is technically inclined in comparison to other stuff but is not a technical death metal album either.

 

[Sedition and Pockets]

Monstrosity fucking rule but Imperial Doom is pretty much an old school death metal album and doesn't belong here imo.

I kind of waffled on it, but I think relative to its time, it fits. Millennium or In Dark Purity might have been more in keeping with the strictest reading of the topic, though.

 

[Sedition and Pockets]

This record rules. Such an oddball production too.

It has a really nice balance of instrumental clarity with a distortion texture that still bleeds, like.

 

[Allfader]

Monstrosity fucking rule but Imperial Doom is pretty much an old school death metal album and doesn't belong here. .

Same reason I didn't add any of the Barnes' era Cannibal Corpse albums, although The Bleeding might qualify.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

There were already solidified technical death metal bands and albums at the time. I dont think either of those two belong. Just because a piece of work is technical doesnt mean it falls into the subgenre. Same can be said with a bunch of other descriptors, if we hear melody in a band we dont just lump them into Melodic death metal or what not because if that was the case Red in the Sky would also fall under melodic death metal which would be incorrect. Bolt Thrower are pretty damn melodic, doesnt make them a melodic death metal band. Morbid Angels Covenant is just as, if not more technical than Impeding Doom and was just a very technically inclined piece of work on a whole, but its still not a tech death album. Same can be said about plenty of other bands and subgenres. Imagine someone implying that Immolation(who are also highly technical and have influenced/contributed more to todays sound of tech death than a lot of other bands) are melodic death metal just ebacuse they clearly have a signature melodic sound or that Rust in Peace is tech-thrash jut because its highly technical. That just not how it works. but hey its your list and you can list whoever you want.

Same reason I didn't add any of the Barnes' era Cannibal Corpse albums

yeah i think some of their later albums fall under the tech-death umbrella

 

[Sophii]

No order:

Psycroptic - Isle of Disenchantment
Decapitated - Winds of Creation
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Death - Individual Thought Patterns
Viraemia - Viraemia EP
Gorguts - Obscura
Carcass - Necrotism
Archspire - All Shall Align
Necrophagist - Epitaph
The Contortionist - Exoplanet

 

[Sophii]

yeah i think some of their later albums fall under the tech-death umbrella

Would Gallery of Suicide fall under that?

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Would Gallery of Suicide fall under that?

not sure since im not familiar enough with the album, picked it up a year or two ago and spun it like once or twice and from what i remember i'd say no. Could be wrong though. I can tell you Necroticism isnt though But man that album fucking rules

Evisceration Plague is probably the most "techy" sounding album i've heard from CC.

 

[Sedition and Pockets]

There were already solidified technical death metal bands and albums at the time. I dont think either of those two belong. Just because a piece of work is technical doesnt mean it falls into the subgenre. Same can be said with a bunch of other descriptors, if we hear melody in a band we dont just lump them into Melodic death metal or what not because if that was the case Red in the Sky would also fall under melodic death metal which would be incorrect. Bolt Thrower are pretty damn melodic, doesnt make them a melodic death metal band. Morbid Angels Covenant is just as, if not more technical than Impeding Doom and was just a very technically inclined piece of work on a whole, but its still not a tech death album. Same can be said about plenty of other bands and subgenres. Imagine someone implying that Immolation are melodic death metal or that Rust in Peace is tech-thrash jut because its highly technical. That jut not how it works.

Definitional question. Do you think there is a true subgenre of technical death metal, as opposed to technicality being something developed and applied across a number of different subdivisions of death metal? My instinct is to say it is the latter, but it sounds like you'd argue that it does constitute its own coherent subgenre. I'd be interested to hear how you define that, and what you'd say distinguishes death metal that is technical from technical death metal, if the distinction makes sense.

The thing that trips me up here is that like, Elements and Effigy of the Forgotten barely sound like they were recorded on the same planet. I can buy that they are both death metal albums that share the common feature of being technical, but I'm not sure I can hear those records as sharing a subgenre together. I may just be looking from the wrong angle, though.

 

[Sophii]

not sure since im not familiar enough with the album, picked it up a year or two ago and spun it like once or twice and from what i remember i'd say no. Could be wrong though. I can tell you Necroticism isnt though But man that album fucking rules

Evisceration Plague is probably the most "techy" sounding album i've heard from CC.

I thought Necrotism would, but wasn't too sure either. I know Michael Amott and Bill Steer goes nuts on some tight guitar playing on that album.

Evisceration Plague rules! Currently the only CC album I own tho.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Did you just ask me if one of the oldest and most respected subgenres of death metal is actually a true subgenre of death metal? What kind of a ridiculous question is that? I already broke down to you how that works. Just because a band is technical doesn't make it technical death metal, and just because a band is melodic doesnt make melodic death metal, just because band plays fast doesnt make it speed metal, etc. And i even brought up examples which im pretty sure no sane person would dispute and i dont think you would either(could be wrong though). And bands dont need to sound identical to be a part of their respective subgenres and this can literally be applied to every other subgenre and i can go ahead and do whatou did with Suffo and Atheist. Toxik and Dark Angel sound almost nothing like each other, are they both not tech-thrash? Same can be said for modern bands like Hexen and Vektor. Do you not believe that tech thrash is a legit subgenre either? Slayer and Metallica do not share many similarities, are they both not thrash bands? These are some very simpleminded question you are asking. Atheist and Suffocation sounded like nothing else the death metal world was doing at the time(unlike Morbid Angel and Monstrosity). Suffocation for example were the first brutal+mindbogginly complex technical death metal bands(far more so than the two bands i mentioned) and are a huge influence on the modern "tech-death" bands of today, without Suffocation there would be Necrophagist and without Necrophagist the modern sound of "tech-death" would not exist while Atheist(along with Cynic, Death, Pestilence, etc) went on to innovate a whole 'nother branch of technical death metal that was on the more progressive isle of the genre ... which is the reason Elements is not just a straight forward technical death metal album, but a highly progressive technical death album(again, far more so than the two albums i questioned). One that is far more progressive than what even most of the other technical death metal bands were doing and imo only Spheres comes close in that regard. You can look up the definition of the subgerne yourself, its not that hard and its not like i have my own secret definition of it.... but extreme complexity and highly progressive experimentation are two things that can be applied to most technical death metal bands.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Lol