Old School Death Metal

My latest phase has been again enjoying one of my favorite subgenres: OSDM. By this I mean bands like Malevolent Creation, Obituary, early Death, Bolt Thrower, Six Feet Under, etc. Some brutal and progressive stuff fits here by extension: Suffocation, Nile, later Death, Pestilence, etc. What are your favorite bands in this style? What have you been listening to? Here are some recent discoveries I'm enjoying:

That Therion sounds really good. 
I love me some OSDM, favorites are Bolt Thrower and Obituary. Have you heard Memoriam? They're kind of an offshoot of BT. 
Hail of Bullets
Kataklysm
Ex Deo
Malevolent
Decapitated
Benediction
Have you gotten into any of the tech death bands?

I love that Cemetary album and the Sadist album. They both rank among my favorite death metal albums.

I spent the entirety of December jamming DM(I dubbed it "Death Metal December"), so I am currently giving it a rest.

I may come back around and list some stuff. Happy hunting and head banging!

Black Rider wrote:That Therion sounds really good. 
I love me some OSDM, favorites are Bolt Thrower and Obituary. Have you heard Memoriam? They're kind of an offshoot of BT. 
Hail of Bullets
Kataklysm
Ex Deo
Malevolent
Decapitated
Benediction
Have you gotten into any of the tech death bands?

I've heard and enjoy all of those bands except for Hail of Bullets and Memoriam (which I haven't heard but sound interesting).

I just re-purchased the first four Decapitated CDs. That debut was fantastic. I saw them live back in 2005 with Nile and Hypocrisy.

Shadows and Dust is one of my favorites from way back, but I also like Kataklysm's Sorcery and Temple of Knowledge. I haven't gotten into Ex Deo as much but I have a couple of their albums.

I do like some brutal and tech bands (and used to listen to those a lot more when I was a teenager), but I prefer the OSDM sound now. I ordered an old album from Vile (New Age of Chaos) and I'm looking into a few others I used to listen to.

flat circle wrote:I love that Cemetary album and the Sadist album. They both rank among my favorite death metal albums.

I spent the entirety of December jamming DM(I dubbed it "Death Metal December"), so I am currently giving it a rest.

I may come back around and list some stuff. Happy hunting and head banging!

That Cemetary album is one of the absolute best things I've heard in a long time. The Sadist record really surprised me. Both are rooted in OSDM but do so much more.

I spent December and the few months around it jamming Trad/Epic Doom before coming into this phase. Funny how we go through these genre cycles.

OSDM is my favorite of the genre but I do some of the tech death stuff from Allegeaon and Obscura. Hail of Bullets is kind of a super group with the best known being Martin Van Drunen from Asphyx on vocals and like Bolt Thrower it's war themed.

I have not listened to any death metal in awhile....that said, I don't know if all of these qualify as old school death metal, but the following are some of my favorite "throw backs" although one is more recent:

Grave - Into The Grave, Soulless
Entombed - Clandestine, Left Hand Path
Obituary - S/T (2017)
Desultory - Into Eternity
Gorguts - The Erosion Of Sanity, Considered Dead
At The Gates - Terminal Spirit Disease
Death - Scream Bloody Gore
Disincarnate - Dreams Of The Carrion Kind
Brutality - Screams Of Anguish

I'm sure I'm forgetting others....

Constantine wrote:I have not listened to any death metal in awhile....that said, I don't know if all of these qualify as old school death metal, but the following are some of my favorite "throw backs" although one is more recent:

Grave - Into The Grave, Soulless
Entombed - Clandestine, Left Hand Path
Obituary - S/T (2017)
Desultory - Into Eternity
Gorguts - The Erosion Of Sanity, Considered Dead
At The Gates - Terminal Spirit Disease
Death - Scream Bloody Gore
Disincarnate - Dreams Of The Carrion Kind
Brutality - Screams Of Anguish

I'm sure I'm forgetting others....

Those Brutality and Desultory albums are quite underrated. I'm still undecided on Disincarnate but I did order the CD. Gorguts' first album is solid OSDM.

How do you guys approach the lyrics on this stuff? I've kind of gotten over the violence and gore in some DM lyrics because it's usually dumb horror movie stuff. I'll even tolerate some criticism of Christians, but I draw a line at anything blasphemous. Thus, I've tended to stay away from those Swedish DM bands like Entombed. There's also some of that in the Florida DM (Morbid Angel and Deicide whom I don't listen to) but far less so than the Swedish scene where it seems like the majority of the bands went that way.

I recently picked up Goreguts and Bolt Thrower.

I didn't listen to secular metal back then. Out of a list a friend recommended they hit the spot. I could hear the influence on Mortification from that time.

@Son of Nun - that's very similar to my stance. No intelligible or known blasphemy. I don't like vulgarity or constant curse words.

I typically approach lyrics with a grain of salt. With that being said, I do not care for the lyrical content of MA. I've listened to tons of Swedish Death Metal and I always thought their approach was more "anti-" than outright blasphemous.

For instance, compare the lyrics to "Blasphemy" by Morbid Angel and "Left Hand Path" by Entombed.

Both are anti-Christian, yet one is certainly more vulgar than the other. 

I would never argue for someone to listen to something outside of their comfort zone.

I try to pay as little attention to lyrics as humanly possible. Let's face it, this is metal and not poetry, the prose is likely going to be garbage.

In conclusion, I can stand things that are just "anti-Christian," but things that reach the level of "Blasphemy" make me twitchy.

flat circle wrote:I try to pay as little attention to lyrics as humanly possible. Let's face it, this is metal and not poetry, the prose is likely going to be garbage.

This is essentially my approach too.   First of all, in death metal I can't even understand what they are saying and I have no desire to look up a lyric sheet for casual listening.   However...I do focus in the lyrics when creating playlists that others can access.  Then, I pay a lot of attention.  That said, I have looked at some lyric sheets in horror and basically stopped listening to certain bands and have never looked back.  Others might have one questionable song or two and unless it crosses a line for me, I just skip those songs.  My attention span is not high anyway so I skip songs a lot if they are not holding my attention at the time.

I have stayed away from bands that have portrayed serious anti-Christian images, like Deicide, Morbid Angel, Unleashed, Behemoth, Rotting Ch***t, Immolation, Angel Corpse, Incantation, Impaled Nazarene, Gorgoroth, Marduk, Mayhem, Acheron, etc.  Some of that is just habit but most is just casually dismissive, i.e. I don't need them in my life so I might pray for the band members or just ignore those bands entirely.

I agree with what you guys are saying. Son of Nun, I think the Swedish scene is a mixed bag like in the states, bands like Dark Tranquillity seem to stay away from being blasphemous.

That Morbid Angel song is definitely worse than the Entombed song, but the line "impotent redeemer" is enough to put me off. The place where I draw the line between anti-Christian and blasphemy is that the former is criticism of Christians and the latter is using insulting or abusive language towards God. I feel both of those songs are in the latter category for me. Anti-Christian lyrics still bother me sometimes while other times I can overlook them, but blasphemy is always a no-go. I think we're pretty much on the same page with that though we might assess some songs/albums differently.

I feel compelled to read the complete lyrics of an album before I purchase it. I don't feel that I can, in good conscience, listen to an album without knowing what it's talking about with the possibility that blasphemy is being uttered. I don't particularly value lyrics either (I listen because of the music), but if there is blasphemy present I can't ignore it.

As a buyer of physical media, I don't even feel right about buying CDs that have a song on them that is blasphemous even though I can just skip that song. That may be unreasonable but I've really struggled with it. For some albums I think the only choice (if I really do want to listen to them) is to download individual songs (which I hate doing). Primarily, I don't want to offend God. I've been thinking a lot lately about art in human life and how God looks at art but it can be hard to discern the truth.

Black Rider: I exclude the Gothenburg Melodic DM from this because it's stylistically different from OSDM, but (with the exception of At the Gates) those bands do tend to have better lyrics; particularly In Flames and DT. If you look at the main Swedish OSDM bands (Entombed, Dismember, Grave, Unleashed, Carnage) there seems to be a greater preponderance of anti-Christian (and sometimes blasphemous) language than the Florida scene. Despite the presences of MA and Deicide, the Florida scene also produced Death, Massacre, Obituary, Malevolent Creation, Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under, Monstrosity, Disincarnate, Atheist, and Cynic which generally put less emphasis on religion and thus anti-Christianity/blasphemy. It's always a mixed bag with Extreme Metal but I've found more stuff that I can work with in the Florida scene (which is good because I like the music better too).

I'm with you Son of Nun. I can't do it. 

I love Harry Konklin's vocals and Satan's Host is about as good as it gets musically for me but there's no way, no way I touch those albums. I can't. And that's fine. There's plenty of great music out there that isn't insulting to my God.

Son of Nun wrote:That Morbid Angel song is definitely worse than the Entombed song, but the line "impotent redeemer" is enough to put me off. The place where I draw the line between anti-Christian and blasphemy is that the former is criticism of Christians and the latter is using insulting or abusive language towards God. I feel both of those songs are in the latter category for me. Anti-Christian lyrics still bother me sometimes while other times I can overlook them, but blasphemy is always a no-go. I think we're pretty much on the same page with that though we might assess some songs/albums differently.

I feel compelled to read the complete lyrics of an album before I purchase it. I don't feel that I can, in good conscience, listen to an album without knowing what it's talking about with the possibility that blasphemy is being uttered. I don't particularly value lyrics either (I listen because of the music), but if there is blasphemy present I can't ignore it.

As a buyer of physical media, I don't even feel right about buying CDs that have a song on them that is blasphemous even though I can just skip that song. That may be unreasonable but I've really struggled with it. For some albums I think the only choice (if I really do want to listen to them) is to download individual songs (which I hate doing). Primarily, I don't want to offend God. I've been thinking a lot lately about art in human life and how God looks at art but it can be hard to discern the truth.

Solid reply, sir. 

Back in the day, the internet was not what it is now, you could not read lyrics before purchasing. In some cases, you could tell what the album was about by the song titles, though. It was obvious to me that Morbid Angel was extreme lyrically.

I also feel that a lot of this is due to youthful edginess. I could be wrong, though.

scottmitchell74 wrote:I'm with you Son of Nun. I can't do it. 

I love Harry Conklin's vocals and Satan's Host is about as good as it gets musically for me but there's no way, no way I touch those albums. I can't. And that's fine. There's plenty of great music out there that isn't insulting to my God.

You can still jam Jag Panzer and Titan Force! Jag Panzer being the most important of the two.

Since you asked about Tech Death, I'll drop my fav Tech Death band, Archspire. These dudes...golly are they great.
I know they're a newer band, but it's pretty obvious that they have a solid foundation on the more techy ODSM bands.
Hope you dig em.


And just in case you're wondering if the drums on that song are digital...they were recorded by a human.




And another

scottmitchell74 wrote:I'm with you Son of Nun. I can't do it. 

I love Harry Konklin's vocals and Satan's Host is about as good as it gets musically for me but there's no way, no way I touch those albums. I can't. And that's fine. There's plenty of great music out there that isn't insulting to my God.

It can be frustrating because I know I'm missing out on some foundational stuff (I'm OCD and an historian so that really bothers me), but I try to look at it as spiritually beneficial. I think it's a good thing that I have to use my discernment and set some boundaries. In our society we tend to be very indulgent of our desires. It's almost a kind of ascetic practice to have to deny oneself of something you want for a higher purpose. At least that's what I tell myself to feel a little better about having to avoid some important bands.

flat circle wrote:Solid reply, sir. 

Back in the day, the internet was not what it is now, you could not read lyrics before purchasing. In some cases, you could tell what the album was about by the song titles, though. It was obvious to me that Morbid Angel was extreme lyrically.

I also feel that a lot of this is due to youthful edginess. I could be wrong, though.

That's a good point. I think Metal-Archives has been around as long as I've been into Metal (probably a little before) but I didn't care about lyrics back then when I was a teenager (and not a Christian). I've only been into Metal as a Christian since 2018 so I've always had that resource.

I do agree that a lot of it is youthful edginess and thankfully some bands grow out of it, but others seem to persist in it through the decades which is quite sad. I think there are some guys that are or become Christians but they don't really publicize it (I can think of a couple examples). Others literally go to the grave with this anti-Christian stuff. I've been increasing my prayer for these musicians and fans as I research these bands and see the need. I'm hoping a day will come when these rebellious musicians will realize that Christianity is the true rebellion against this secular humanist society.

Machine Fish wrote:Since you asked about Tech Death, I'll drop my fav Tech Death band, Archspire. These dudes...golly are they great.
I know they're a newer band, but it's pretty obvious that they have a solid foundation on the more techy ODSM bands.
Hope you dig em.

A new band that doesn't play Deathcore!?   This is pretty good. Will investigate further.

Oh yeah, Archspire is incredible.

Son of Nun wrote:A new band that doesn't play Deathcore!?   This is pretty good. Will investigate further.

Lol. I'll be honest, I love me some deathcore too. But, yeah, there's actually a big scene of Tech Death bands out there.
Obscura
Allegaeon
Beyond Creation
Are a couple more that are pretty good. Archspire obliterates them though in my opinion. The way they write their songs makes each instrument pop. Plus the neoclassical parts are perfection. Archspire single handledly ruined other Tech Death bands for me haha

In doing a review of Christian vs. non-Christian death metal bands, it dawned on me that there are actually very few "old school" death bands in the Christian realm.  

I wonder if that is because A) Christian bands have tended to be a few years behind in terms of sound and style, and/or B) Christian death metal is not a big market so it doesn't attract many musicians.  I don't know, what does anyone else think?

Here are some bands that I would consider "old school" as far as where some or all of their material falls.  If anyone has others to add that I missed, please do.

1.  Mortification
2.  Tortured Conscience
3.  Proclamus
4.  GROMS
5.  Antidemon   (possibly more grindcore than old school....)
6.  Corpse
7.  Scourged Flesh
8.  Martyr's Shrine
9.  Metanoia
10. Crimson Thorn
11. Azorrague   (the "Die With Us" album)
12. Deracination
13. Obliteration
14. Oblation
15. Evisceration
16. Skymetal
16.  Zebulom
17. Demonic Extinction  (yeah, I know they are controversial, but for academic purposes I am listing them...)
18. Revulsed  (technically, probably not a Christian band as much as Christians in a band)
19. Living Sacrifice   (the 2 older albums with Darren Johnson)
20. Wicked's End  (some earlier material....)

I've been working through the discographies of the some of the classic bands. So far I've gone through Bolt Thrower, Malevolent Creation, Obituary, Six Feet Under, and part of Cannibal Corpse (the Barnes era).

Obituary is definitely one of my favorite bands now. They don't have a bad album. Aside from the first three, I really enjoy some of the less acclaimed albums like Back From the Dead, Xecutioner's Return, and Inked in Blood.

I've always been an unabashed Six Feet Under fan regardless of what people say (it's been trendy to hate on them for years). Aside from the first three (which are great), I really like Commandment, Unborn, and the Unburied sessions. True Carnage is also surprisingly good (better than I remember) due to a brutal vocal performance. Undead and 13 are pretty good too.The Torture Killer album with Barnes on vocals is also excellent and comparable to Unborn (on which TK guitarist Jari Laine wrote some songs).

The first 4 Cannibal Corpse albums are, indeed, classic. Butchered at Birth and The Bleeding are the top two for me. BaB really took me by surprise with what a great album it is. So brutal and full of groove at the same time. I used to be a big Suffocation fan, but I think BaB did the brutal/groove formula better than Effigy. I'm listening to some of the Fisher albums and what I've heard is good but not near the level of the Barnes era. I'll probably work through the rest of their discography at some point.

I really enjoy OSDM (Bolt Thrower or Death are my favorites) and some tech death (Nile, Gorguts). 

I also avoid anything that’s blasphemous. No Morbid Angel or Deicide for me, even though I’m sure I’d enjoy their music. I confess I haven’t explored much Cannibal Corpse just because the imagery and some song titles are too graphic for me. I love a good horror movie, but I don’t watch anything quite that graphic! But I might check out some of CC’s classics.

Pethead wrote:I really enjoy OSDM (Bolt Thrower or Death are my favorites) and some tech death (Nile, Gorguts). 

I also avoid anything that’s blasphemous. No Morbid Angel or Deicide for me, even though I’m sure I’d enjoy their music. I confess I haven’t explored much Cannibal Corpse just because the imagery and some song titles are too graphic for me. I love a good horror movie, but I don’t watch anything quite that graphic! But I might check out some of CC’s classics.

I spent some months discerning the Cannibal Corpse issue. I read/listened to a lot of interviews with various band members. One thing that made me feel more comfortable with them is that all those guys said "we don't believe in or advocate for any of this stuff -  we are disgusted by it too."  Chris Barnes has spoken in various interviews about "shedding some light" on the evil and depravity in the world and that it makes him see how precious life is. One particularly important moment for me was in a podcast where the (rather creepy) interviewer asked Barnes who his "favorite" serial killer is and Barnes was taken aback and said he wouldn't use that word to describe these people who are basically monsters. Reading/hearing these comments made something clear to me: there is a big difference in belief and intention between Cannibal Corpse and bands like Morbid Angel and Deicide. Not only do the latter blaspheme or speak about violence towards Christians, they really believe what they say and are advocates of that anti-Christian message.

I'm just thankful there are censored versions of the CC albums.