What is Death Metal?

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal, emerged in the 1980s. You can recognize death metal by death growls, distorted guitars, its aggressive and blasting sound. Death metal combines the elements of thrash metal and early black metal.

Pioneers for the genre include Morbid Angel, Death, Possessed, and Autopsy. Venom’s “Welcome to Hell” and “Black Metal”, Slayer’s “Hell Awaits” and “Reign in Blood” are remarkable works that shaped death metal. Let’s not forget Morbid Angel’s “Altars of Madness” which was an important piece of work for death metal, it’s recalled as “redefining what it meant to be heavy while influencing an upcoming class of brutal death metal.”

Death metal mostly includes death growls, low-tuned and heavily distorted guitars, blast beats, and double kicks. Tremolo picking and palm-muting are commonly used. Lyrics are mostly about politics, religion (sometimes Satanism), nature, and science-fiction.

By the time, death metal evolved and separated into subgenres. The most recognizable ones include melodic death metal (heavy metal including elements of death metal and New Wave of British Heavy Metal), deathcore (death metal - metalcore), blackened death metal (death - black metal), symphonic death metal (death metal but this time including elements of classic music), and brutal death metal (death metal but even heavier, as you can call from the name).