Agressor – Neverending Destiny (1990)

Straddling the no-mans-land between past and present, Agressor’s full-length debut offers a high-octane mixture of late-period speed metal and death metal technique, coupled with pulpy occult/sci-fi lyrics in the vein of Nocturnus, Voivod and Obliveon.

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Pathologist – Putrefactive and Cadaverous Odes About Necroticism (1992)

Like thrash before it, grindcore was born out of a convergence of elements of punk and metal. Where thrash combined metal song structure and intensity with the brevity and minimalism of punk, grindcore merged the most abrasive aspects of hardcore punk with the techniques of death metal of the oldest school, arriving at an uncompromisingly direct and streamlined torrent of atavistic rage.

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Strijd: Black Metal Götterdämmerung

Underground metal was rapidly dying by the mid nineties. The more musically successful death and black metal bands became disenchanted with their resulting limited financial success as the hordes of poseurs poured in through the gates of Byzantium, creating commercial rock that merely imitated the tones and texture of the monumental statues of the metal greats. The more popular death metal bands tried and failed at becoming rock stars while many of the more luminous minds in Norwegian black metal bands were dead or imprisoned.

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