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Click here to create your own MySpace Playlist..Death metal is an offshoot of thrash metal. Thrash metal is a genre of extremes; fast tempos, blaring distortion, yelled and/or shouted vocals, and unpredictable song structures. Thrash bands experimented with new techniques and ideas in order to push the genre further away from mainstream rock music. The most extreme of these thrash bands (most famously, Slayer) created a proto-death metal sound by playing a faster, heavier, and darker version of standard thrash.Around 1983, aggressive U.S. bands such as Florida's Death, California's Possessed, and Chicago's Master began to form. If one would call this diffuse genre "early death metal", the first recorded examples of this would be Possessed's album Seven Churches from 1985, Messiah's album Hymn to Abramelin and Strappado by Slaughter, both from 1986, followed by Death's album Scream Bloody Gore and Season of the Dead by Necrophagia in 1987. Morbid Angel is another band that largely influenced the death metal scene, releasing numerous demos and rehearsal since 1983. To their credit, these "early death metal" bands did push the format forward, something that would ultimately pay off in a new form of music that was substantially different from their closest forefather, thrash metal.The late 1980s saw the rise of death metal in Scandinavia, and in particular in Sweden with bands like Entombed (then Nihilist), God Macabre, Carnage (later Dismember), Grave and Vomitory. The debut albums of these bands were mostly released in the early 1990s and characterised by a distinct guitar sound, which is heavily inspired by the sound of the UK grindcore act Unseen Terror.The alternative standpoint is that the modern concept of death metal — the point when it clearly decouples from the origins in heavy metal and thrash metal — can be set to 1989 or 1990. Just as the original creation of NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) by Iron Maiden and other bands was sparked by the youthful energy of punk rock in the late 1970s, so did cross-fertilisation between metal and punk once more create something new in the late 1980s. The chaotic and often confusing development that took place around this time is well illustrated by the British band Napalm Death, often characterised as a "grindcore" band (see below). This band was simultaneously always part of the hardcore punk scene. However, Napalm Death themselves changed drastically around or before 1990, leaving grindcore behind.In particular, on 1990's Harmony Corruption, Napalm Death can be heard playing something most fans would call death metal today, i.e. "modern death metal" by the above characterization. This album clearly displays aggressive and fairly technical guitar riffing, complex rhythmics, a sophisticated growling vocal delivery by Mark "Barney" Greenway, and thoughtful lyrics. Other bands contributing significantly to this early movement include Britain's Bolt Thrower and Carcass, Buffalo's Cannibal Corpse, Sweden's Entombed, New York's Suffocation, and Florida's Morbid Angel.To close the circle, the band Death put out the album Human in 1991, an example of modern death metal. The band Death's founder Chuck Schuldiner helped push the boundaries of uncompromising speed and technical virtuosity, mixing in highly technical and intricate rhythm guitar work with complex arrangements and emotive guitar solos. Other examples of this are Carcass's Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious from 1991, Suffocation's debut Human Waste from the same year and Entombed's Clandestine from 1992. At this point, all the above characteristics are clearly present: abrupt tempo and count changes, on occasion extremely fast drumming, morbid lyrics and growling delivery.In the late 1980s and early 1990s, various record labels began to sign death metal bands at a rapid rate. Earache Records and Roadrunner Records became the genre's most important labels[2], with bands such as Carcass, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, and Entombed, and Obituary, Sepultura, Pestilence, and Deicide respectively. Although these labels had not been death metal labels to start with (Earache was founded for grindcore and Roadrunner for thrash), they became the genre's flagship labels in the beginning of the 1990s. In addition to these, other labels formed as well, such as Nuclear Blast, Century Media, and Peaceville; many of these labels would go on to achieve successes in other genres of metal throughout the 1990s.
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