Metal Monday: Metal Essentials – Death Metal

posted in: Features • Rock

If a person is to consider themselves a metalhead, they had best know the roots”the basics. Be aware of all subgenres, who dominates them and know the albums that helped shape that subgenre. For the next few weeks, I’ll be schooling you on some essential metal albums from metal’s biggest subgenres; making sure you know the biggest and the best in the metal world while giving you some essential albums to add to your metal collection.

This week is a trip to the extreme that is the death metal subgenre.

Considered by some to have fathered the genre of death metal as we currently know it, the band Death are regarded by many to be one of the greatest bands in the history of metal. The album where they finally perfected their progressive death metal formula is Individual Thought Patterns. From start to finish, Individual Thought Patterns features unmatched technical prowess on all instruments. Unlike many death metal bands at this time, Death’s lyrical content is not based on that of gore or horror. Rather, the lyrical content for all of Individual Thought Patterns is centered around human nature. Add this with the unorthodox bass and guitar parts for the time and you’ve solidified an extremely unique brand of death metal ”one that stands the test of time.

It’s not often that the pinnacle for a band that has upwards of 5 albums comes with their debut release, but that’s exactly what this next band did. Morbid Angel come bursting out of the gate in 1989 with their debut release Altars of Madness ”a now classic in the death metal genre. Much less progressive and unique than Death’s Individual Thought Patterns, Altars of Madness is a simple, straight-forward death metal album. Where this album excels, however, is the consistency in which the songs are constructed. The songs are not uniform to the point of boredom, and every solo on the album is blisteringly fresh and unique.

Third up is a band who greatly influenced an entire subgenre of music”brutal death metal. While their first 2 albums were very good, Suffocation really made their mark with the 1995 release Pierced From Within. With vastly superior production and mastering than their previous efforts, it was easier to hear just how technical and heavy Suffocation’s playing style really was. Pierced From Within took everything that Suffocation was praised for in their first 2 albums, and stepped it up a notch. The solos were longer and more complex, the drumming was tighter and the vocals even more brutal. As an album that almost exclusively defines a subgenre of metal, this is a must have for a metal collection.

Though death metal is one of the more “acquired tastes” under the metal umbrella, all it takes is the right album to set you on your way. Go to your local record store, or to where you keep your music, and put these albums on. Take a journey into some of the most brutal music around.

(also, RIP Chuck Schuldiner – your brilliance was unmatched for your time in metal)