All About Death Metal: 5 Notable Death Metal Bands

Death metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that features distorted, low-tuned guitars, thunderous percussion, accelerated tempos, and guttural vocals. One of the subgenre’s most distinguishing characteristics is its lyrical content, which frequently addresses gruesome topics and transgressive imagery.

Death metal is also an umbrella term for an array of secondary subgenres like death-doom and deathcore, all of which feature variations on death metal’s dark and aggressive tone. Death metal is a form of extreme metal, an overarching term that describes a diverse constellation of metal subgenres, including black metal and doom metal.

The history of death metal begins in the early 1980s. Here is a brief historical overview of its evolution:

• Forming the sound: Britain’s Venom and Slayer, their American counterpart, served as the primary influence for death metal. Both groups were known for their dark, disturbing music and lyrics that set them apart from mainstream heavy metal or even the thrash metal scene, which included Metallica. Two bands would emerge to define the tenets of death metal—the San Francisco-based Possessed and Death, from Florida—both of which took the speed of thrash metal and the tone and transgressive lyrics of Venom and Slayer and essentially created the template for death metal.
• The first wave: Cassette tape trading among metal fans helped put Possessed and Death at the forefront of the death metal scene, where first-wave death metal bands, like Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, and Obituary, soon joined them. By the late 1980s, the dark gospel of death metal had reached international shores: British bands, like Bolt Thrower, Carcass, and metal veterans Napalm Death, and Swedish acts like Entombed and In Flames released music that would further cement the subgenre’s sound.
• Gaining traction: By the 1990s, death metal albums enjoyed more widespread distribution thanks to devoted labels like Roadrunner and Nuclear Blast. Though the sound never enjoyed mainstream popularity or attention like Norwegian black metal, it continues to mint new death metal fans and influence new bands, many of which experiment with death metal’s signature sound to create their own unique variation.

Several characteristics define the death metal aesthetic, including:

1. 1. Fast and heavy sounds: Death metal bands are typically composed of two guitarists, a vocalist, a bassist, and a drummer. The musicians invariably produce a sound defined by a low-tuned, distorted guitar attack and blast beats—a sixteenth-note figure played at machine-gun speed—on double-bass drums. Time signatures and tempo often change without warning, creating a sense of aggression and menace.
2. 2. Death growls: The roaring, snarling vocal style of death metal—known as death growls—is a key characteristic of the subgenre. Lung power and a strong diaphragm are required to produce the death growl, which can range in tone and power from a guttural grunt to the ear-piercing screams heard in songs by Deicide and Dying Fetus.
3. 3. Aggressive lyrics: As its name suggests, the lyrical focus of most death metal songs is a person’s demise, which is detailed in grisly and disturbing terms. Violent crimes, Satanic phenomena, and mental illness are also explored, as are religion, paganism, and occultism. Some death metal songs also explore less transgressive topics, including philosophy and science fiction.

Numerous subgenres fall under the umbrella label of death metal, including:

1. 1. Brutal death metal: As its name suggests, brutal death metal is an even more aggressive form of death metal that favors speed and intensity over ferocious guitar riffs. It has spawned its own subgenre, slam death metal, which folds New York hardcore punk elements and even elements of hip-hop into its sound. Chief proponents of brutal death metal include Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation.
2. 2. Deathcore: Metalcore, a fusion of metal and hardcore punk, becomes deathcore when death metal’s trademark vocals and percussion are added to its sound. It’s a controversial term within metal circles for a perceived lack of authenticity, which has led to some bands refusing to accept the label for their music.
3. 3. Death doom: The slower tempo and brooding tone of doom metal merge with the death growls and blast beats of death metal to create death doom. Its roots reach back to ’80s bands like Celtic Frost.
4. 4. Melodic death metal: Bands from Sweden, like At the Gates and In Flames, are among the progenitors of melodic death metal, also known as melo-death. It adopts a sound closer to mainstream metal, with stronger harmonic and melodic elements in vocals and guitar.
5. 5. Technical death metal: Though progressive rock, jazz, and even classical music might seem like unlikely elements for death metal, technical death metal—also known as tech-death or prog death—employs the complex time signatures and rhythms with a death metal context. The style has advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, from South Carolina’s Nile to Sweden’s Opeth and the Polish band Decapitated.

There are several notable death metal bands within the subgenre. The most significant include:

1. 1. Behemoth: Behemoth began as a black metal band in 1991 before shifting into an intricate form of death metal at the end of the decade. The band’s interest in occultism and Satanic themes has resulted in criminal charges and bans in their native Poland.
2. 2. Cannibal Corpse: Hailing originally from Buffalo, New York, Cannibal Corpse is one of the longest-running death metal bands, and among the most successful, with more than two million records sold. Their lyrical content and album cover art, which draws heavily on horror fiction and films, is notable for its nightmarish imagery.
3. 3. Death: The Florida-based Death’s debut album, Scream Bloody Death, marked death metal’s transition from an offshoot of thrash metal into a brutal entity all its own. Under singer and guitarist Chuck Schuldiner, Death transitioned from raw power to technical finesse on stage and record until his death in 2001 at the age of 34.
4. 4. Deicide: Deicide and its outspoken frontman/bassist, Glen Benton, have enjoyed considerable success with a controversial anti-religious standpoint that has earned them as many detractors as fans. They’ve remained true to the death metal aesthetic throughout 12 studio albums since emerging from the Tampa, Florida metal scene in 1987.
5. 5. Possessed: Music historians consider the Bay Area band Possessed to be one of the first death metal bands, if not the first. Frontman and sole remaining original member Jeff Beccara’s growling vocals established the death growl’s dominance, as did the band’s assaultive sonic attack, showcased on three studio albums recorded between 1985 and 2019.

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