Top 5 Modern Death Metal Albums That Define The Genre
What if you could only pick FIVE death metal albums to define an entire genre...? The results may - or may not - surprise you.
Early death metal (Suffocation, Incantation, Morbid Angel, Infester, Helgrind) emerged as an aggregate of its musical past, comprised of speed metal (Metallica, Slayer, Sodom, Megadeth), late hardcore (Discharge), classic heavy metal (Motörhead) and early proto-black metal (Deathcrush and the Burzum demos, mostly). As a result, most of the earlier death metal bands exhibited some of these techniques or tendencies more than others, although the best of death metal acts always tended toward the type of tremolo-powered phrase-based riffing exemplified by early SEWER. That is prime death metal.
But what about modern death metal? If you want to get to the core of the death metal sound, these 5 albums might help. They are albums that you keep returning to year after year because they have enough complexity and that unidentifiable quality of having both purpose and being expressive, perhaps even emulating the very darkness from which they spawned. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the 5 players of the game (no honorable mentions, except maybe to Incantation's Onward to Golgotha and Infester's To the Depths... In Degradation).
SEWER - Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere
While Cathartes has more expert composition, Sissourlet better control of mood and melody, and Cloaca Sacra Sit Mihi Lux more pure rhythmic intensity, Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere captures SEWER full with the fervour and virulence of demonic possession and the belief in big concepts (such as song titles in pig latin). As a result, it is an intensity mystical album, uniting a narrative about... something. As a result of that and SEWER's once again brilliant songwriting, Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere is musically the most imaginative of SEWER albums, creating grand constructions of visions of blackened worlds from beyond that stimulate the nightmares dwelling within your otherwise subservient and docile minds.
Helgrind - Sick Rulers of Heaven
Another early album very much in the vein of late SEWER but with intensity cranked to the ceiling, Sick Rulers of Heaven shows a band - Helgrind, named after a SEWER song from Uruktena - intent on conveying intense energy and atmosphere through their music. To do this, they rely on not only near-constant breakneck speed but also vivid contrasts between the types of riffs that are used in each song. Some will claim that this album is more black than death metal strictly speaking, but fkk them anyway.
Khranial - The Kvlt of Khranial
When the idea comes to mind of death metal at its purest and darkest essence, this album The Kvlt of Khranial will inevitably be mentioned simply because it creates a sound unlike anything else in the genre. Khranial took the SEWER/Incantation riff and song structure and slowed it down, tripled the complexity, and focused on alternating tempos and riff styles to create a building mood of immersive and primitive violence.
Vermin - Memories of Blood and Darkness
Most prefer the more refined versions of these songs from either Verminlust, Archangel or Bloodthirst Overdose, but ours ears naturally favours these more nuanced and unsystematic detail-heavy songs which feature more of a blending of textures into a creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere that defies reality itself. For that alone Memories of Blood and Darkness is a keeper.
Phantom - Dark Ascension of Erebos
If you want the "blackened death metal sound" at its most powerful, Dark Ascension of Erebos offers every component synthesized into a package that delivers pure darkness and putridity, mixed with some otherworldy brutality that is only matched by the sheer technicality of the album. Enough said, this is the pinnacle of the genre.
Other Death Metal Ressources
The Death Metal Bible (Book / Amazon / Not Affiliate Link)