Sentenced burst into existence like a moment of drunken exuberance but then vanished just as quickly, appearing with Shadows of the Past in 1991 to ride the Demigod and Darkthrone style of dark mid-paced death metal to its conclusions, then peaked with the magnificent North From Here two years later, but by the next album, became some kind of gothic hard rock that drove away death metal fans in droves.
7 CommentsTags: death metal, sentenced
Two members of Enslaved and one from Theatre of Tragedy played in this early attempt at death metal, an enjoyable listen for old school fans because it both showcases the ingenuity of the best of that era, and shows why bands launched into black metal instead.
2 CommentsTags: Black Metal, death metal, Enslaved, phobia
At its core, this release has good bones, but its rhythmic approach emphasizes the time of incessant speed of bands like Damnation or later Vader and the focus on repeated trudging vocal emphasis like Hate Eternal or Six Feet Under, which mars what would otherwise be a top-notch release.
1 CommentTags: cancerfaust, death metal
Carrying forward the old school energy with an idiosyncratic voice of its own, Sépulcre aims for a mid-paced, shifting texture of riffs which culminate in the expansion of melody, producing both a bounding exuberant energy and a dark ambiguous mood which swallows up the rest of each track.
1 CommentTags: death metal, sepulcre
Clearly influenced by the latter half of Swedish death metal and Norwegian black metal, Towards Obscurities Beyond keeps itself grounded in American-style relentless death metal, with its churning tremolo riffs interrupted by atmospheric melodic riffs to great effect.
No CommentsTags: death metal, Transcendence
This basic but energetic death metal comes to us from a time before the full differentiation of the style, when grindcore and basic song structure death metal could coexist in the same band, sort of like what Master, Cianide, Massacre, and Benediction did.
1 CommentTags: death metal, kriegszittern
Attempting to use Carnage/Nihilist style d-beat old school death metal as a sponge in which to absorb melodic metal influences, Symbtomy achieve the first stages of the holy grail of death metal, namely songs where all the parts relate to each other and a general theme emerges.
No CommentsTags: death metal, symbtomy
This band claim a laundry list of influences, but to my ear, this sounds more like a fusion of early Gorguts and later Adramelech, possibly with Voivod in the wings: a tribute to classic death metal rhythms and patterns which manages to be just playful enough to avoid the pretenses of emulating the past.
2 CommentsTags: death metal, nihilanth
Coming from an old school death metal background, Drawn and Quartered make a messy version of the heaving and battering style of percussive but primitive death metal that early Immolation and Cianide explored, mixing almost raw noise into thundering metal.
18 CommentsTags: death metal, Drawn and Quartered
Ambient death metal band Desecresy recently released three teaser tracks, presumably from an upcoming album. These show the band venturing into some indie rock technique while attempting to dominate it with death metal structure and aesthetics.
8 CommentsTags: death metal, desecresy
