50 Fun Facts About Death Metal

What are the genre's deep, coarse roaring vocals commonly called?

They are often assumed to be vocal fry, but experienced singers produce the real thing with a different technique entirely.

Death metal vocals are jokingly compared to which Sesame Street character?

The tongue-in-cheek label stuck because the guttural delivery really does resemble the puppet's voice.

Which drumming technique, alongside double kick, defines death metal's rhythm?

Death's founder once left a Bay Area lineup partly because a drummer who used the technique was, he felt, playing too fast.

Venom, whose first two albums shaped extreme metal, came from which English city?

Welcome to Hell and Black Metal, released in 1981 and 1982, gave thrash, death and black metal their shared starting point.

Which Slayer album does AllMusic credit with inspiring the entire death metal genre?

Their previous record, Hell Awaits, is also credited with inventing much of the sound and fury that followed.

Which 1985 debut album is described as 'connecting the dots' between thrash and death metal?

The band's members cited Venom, Motörhead and early Exodus as their real influences rather than Slayer.

Under what name was the band Death originally formed in 1983?

Their early rehearsal tapes and demos spread through the tape-trading network before a single record existed.

Who is widely recognized as the 'Father of Death Metal'?

He took over vocals in his own band and later pushed it toward progressive, technical territory before his early death.

What was the title of Death's 1987 debut album?

The San Francisco Chronicle called it the first true death metal record; About.com called it the evolution from thrash.

Death deepened the sound of which Brandon-based band that inspired them?

Fast minor-key riffs plus fast drumming became the template that caught on in tape-trading circles.

Obituary, Morbid Angel and Deicide are the core of which state's death metal scene?

By 1989 labels were signing the state's bands at a rapid rate, and out-of-town acts relocated there to join the scene.

What was Morbid Angel's 1989 debut album?

AllMusic said it made Venom and Slayer sound like children's music by comparison.

Which 1991 Death album became a hallmark of technical death metal?

It was the band's fourth record, pairing intricate rhythm guitar with complex arrangements and emotive solos.

Which label released albums by Carcass, Napalm Death and Entombed?

It was not founded as a death metal label but became one of the genre's flagships at the start of the 1990s.

Which label released albums by Obituary and Pestilence?

Like its rivals it went on to bigger successes in other metal genres across the 1990s.

Where was the 1990 Day of Death festival, one of North America's first, held?

Death's manager Eric Greif staged it in the Milwaukee suburb with 26 bands, including Atheist, Cynic and Immolation.

In which years did death metal's popularity reach its initial peak?

Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse enjoyed mild commercial success, but the genre as a whole never went mainstream.

Fenriz, who said Norwegian musicians were 'fed up' with death metal, drums for which band?

The rivalry between Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal pushed death metal to diversify into subgenres.

What is the 2010s movement reviving the genre's 1980s sound called?

Tomb Mold, Necrot, Undergang and Blood Incantation were among the first to gain traction, and the pandemic amplified the attention.

Which Venom Prison singer did Kerrang! call 'metal's most important and uncompromising voice'?

The band drew attention for confronting what the magazine called death metal's misogyny problem with rape-revenge narratives.

Loudwire describes which death metal vocal style as a 'breeee' sound?

The technique is most associated with slam and other breakdown-heavy styles.

Who says he coined the term 'death metal' for a high school English assignment?

His reasoning: speed metal and black metal were taken, and the new name was not yet associated with Venom or anyone else.

Which band released a 1984 demo titled Death Metal, with a song of the same name?

The song reappeared on the band's debut album the following year.

Thomas Fischer and Martin Ain's band used 'Death Metal' as a zine and split-album title. Which band?

The pair placed heavy emphasis on the term in 1984, including in the liner notes of Apocalyptic Raids.

Which 1993 Carcass album is sometimes credited as the first melodic death metal record?

Swedish bands usually get the pioneer credit instead, but this British record beat them to the shelves.

In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and At the Gates define which city's metal sound?

Their melodic style uses screams rather than deep roars, slower tempos and far more emphasis on melody.

Melodeath is heavily influenced by which earlier movement?

Iron Maiden-style twin-guitar harmonies are the clearest inheritance, layered over extreme-metal drumming.

Which subgenre, pioneered by Thergothon and Skepticism, plays dirge-like music at very slow tempos?

Other pioneers included Mournful Congregation, Esoteric, Evoken and Funeral, spread across four continents.

Which style mixes the genre's vocals with elements of 1970s hard rock?

Entombed, Gorefest and Six Feet Under are the standard examples.

Which subgenre merges death metal with metalcore?

Despised Icon, Suicide Silence and All Shall Perish built the breakdown-driven sound in the 2000s.

Decibel credits which band's trademark breakdowns with spawning an entire subgenre?

Rolling Stone also credits the breakdown riff of their 'Liege of Inveracity' as the first slam riff in death metal.

Slam death metal evolved from which city's 1990s death metal scene?

Internal Bleeding and Pyrexia led the first wave, swapping solos for mid-tempo, hip-hop-inflected grooves.

Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus and Cryptopsy are filed under which subgenre?

The style prioritizes heaviness, speed and complex rhythms over melody and timbre.

Which grindcore fusion focuses on forensic pathology themes?

Carcass's early records, sung from a pathology textbook, are the usual starting point.

Deathrash gained particular notoriety on which Indonesian island?

Critics there linked the scene to accelerated tourism and the crowding-out of local culture by Jakarta's.

Which band is a notable example of industrial death metal?

Anaal Nathrakh, Autokrator and Meathook Seed are the other names usually cited.

Which band is filed under tech-death and prog-death alongside Nile and Edge of Sanity?

The subgenre fuses death metal with progressive rock, jazz or classical music, and the line between technical and progressive is thin.

Which Polish band is one of Europe's primary modern technical death metal acts?

Earlier European carriers of the style included Italy's Gory Blister and Electrocution.

Blackened death metal bands are more likely than others to wear suits of armour and what?

Belphegor, Behemoth and Akercocke are the usual examples of the black-metal-inflected style.

Blasphemy and Archgoat play which 'bestial' subgenre, named after armed conflict?

Blasphemy, Archgoat and Beherit play it; Rock Hard described the sound as 'rabid' and 'hammering'.

Which of these bands is described as symphonic death metal?

Septicflesh, MaYaN and Children of Bodom are also listed under the classical-tinged style.

Which Cannibal Corpse song is performed in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective?

The 1994 cameo was an abridged version; the song later won Metal Hammer Germany's Greatest Death Metal Song award in 2009.

Which country banned the sale of all Cannibal Corpse recordings in October 1996?

The catalogue was finally classified and re-released there between 2006 and 2007.

Which US senator accused Cannibal Corpse of undermining the national character in 1995?

He lumped them in with hip-hop acts the Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew during his run for the presidency.

In which city was Cannibal Corpse formed in 1988?

They later relocated to Tampa to join the emerging southern scene and its recording opportunities.

What is the nickname of Cannibal Corpse vocalist George Fisher?

He came from Monstrosity to replace Chris Barnes in 1995, and the drummer says he was the only person considered.

Which 2021 album gave Cannibal Corpse its first top 10 on the Billboard Top Album Sales chart?

It entered at No. 6 with 14,000 copies, the band's best first week after more than thirty years.

Which label signed Cannibal Corpse in July 1989?

The label's president said he was sold partly by the demo's song title 'A Skull Full of Maggots'.

In which year did Death's founder die, ending the band?

He died of glioma and pneumonia in December, and the band remains an enduring influence rather than a going concern.

Which band did early Death drummer Chris Reifert go on to form in California?

He stayed behind on the West Coast when Death's founder went home after the debut album.