Forgive the off-topiciness of this post, but the two best ever sentences on wikipedia are on the death metal page:



Anyhow, does anybody else find heavy metal genre distinctions incredibly confusing? What makes a death metal a death metal and not a thrash metal?

I've never been too much into death metal, but Altars of Madness from Morbid Angel is a classic and compulsory listening in the genre. Can't go wrong with early Sepultura either (until Arise, then they're moving away from death). Slayer isn't death.

That's hilarious. Seems like it's been written by a 14-year-old (or someone with the mindset of a 14-year-old) for who it's some competition about who's listening to the most extreme music.
I agree that it's confusing. I'm not an expert at all, but to me death metal is a bit of an extension on thrash metal from the early 80's. it just takes thrash more to the extreme, both in music and vocals. The vocals are more extreme (grunts) compared with most thrash metal, plus the lyrics are a lot more morbid... but it's not always easy to differentiate. 80's Sepultura is a bit hard to define as thrash or death as it seems to be somewhere in between. They took the thrash from Slayer and went on from that, until they started using punk/hardcore elements on Chaos AD etc.

there's a distinctive ambience going thru a black metal song, whether death metal is really aggressive and challenging guitar music.

there's some death metal bands that put a lot of black metal bands to shame, in terms of heaviness and there's a lot of wimpy black metal (dimmu borgir, cradle of filth, anyone?). my point is, there are different in the end, one can't really be all "ohh this is heavier!!" "no, this is!!". fucking pointless.

SADUS (a vision of misery, elements of anger, out for blood)



CORONER (mental vortex, grin, coroner)

coroner is thrash, although with prog influences, not unlike voivod. yeah, mental vortex is awesome.

i'm seeing sadus with obituary in like a week.

ps: anyone here ever heard zyklon? it's samoth from emperor's death metal band, i've read mostly good reviews but have never found someone who actually have listened to them.

How did I forgot zyklon. Get world ov worms, it is the 2nd best death metal album in my opinion. They are so brutal live as well.

Morbid Angel - Formulas Fatal To The Flesh
Suffocation - Despise The Sun
Immolation - Close To A World Below

That must be the best nickname I've ever seen.

i would say that death metal is an extension of grindcore too, these two strands meet somewhere in the middle to form death metal

Unless I'm very much mistaken, the greatest of them all haven't been listed yet:




Death - Leprosy. One of the heaviest records of all time.
Download Pull The Plug




Exodus - Bonded By Blood. A thrash classic. Think Metallica's Kill 'Em All... but twice as fierce.
Download No Love

Both classics!!

bonded by blood is one of my all time favorites, i like it more than anything slayer have ever released. reverb and all.

Entombed - Clandestine


Incantation - Mortal Throne of Nazarene


Gorguts - Obscura

And if you like technical DM that is still dark and discordant then check out my band Ulcerate

http://www.myspace.com/ulcerate

I saw Zyklon once. I liked it a lot at the show, but Emperor is more my style for general listening.

ohh fuck!! that takes me back!!! i haven't seen that album in fucking 15 years...i actually can't remember the music in it.

the differences between death metal and black metal are pretty distinctive
also slayer is totally a thrash band.

i dont know much death metal, except a little where it crosses into grind territory so i dont have much to suggest.

Pestilence rule dude. You could argue that its thrash but frankly its so damn aggressive and heavy that it couldnt be anything other then death metal. In fact it trolloped a lot of 'death metal' releases into the ground in terms of heaviness when it came out in '88. Testimony of the Ancients rules too, but not as raw as Consuming Impulse

GORGUTS - OBSCURA

will probably be my next "classics album" post.