Old School Death Metal

They are definitely more streamlined now. Check the second song I posted which is from their new album Scars of a Lost Reflective Shadow.

Next up: Hate Eternal

I didn't care for the early Hate Eternal albums when they were coming out. Seemed like pretty boring blast-blast stuff. Took a shot at this newest one and I like it. It's still brutal but more melodic (particularly in the solos) and even atmospheric than I imagined it would be. I think Erik might be taking some notes from Nile with the eastern sound here. The lyrics are all supposed to be metaphors for personal tragedies he's suffered and such hardships in his personal life recently and I thought they all seemed fine on this album.

Can't quite get into Obituary though I don't hate them either.

Here's a few off hand I enjoy and mostly go to when I'm in death metal mood, and all old school stuff as new death metal just sucks. Hate all that over the top tech crap.



 Entombed: Left hand path

Deicide: first three my all time fav OSDM albums

Morbid Angel

Old school Death

Mort: Scrolls

Living Sacrifice: Non existent

Butchered by Cannibal

probably missed a few...

no real surprises really in my basket. But they're called classics for good reason.

There's tons of non tech death metal coming out and some of it is really good.

Next up is Asphyx. I'd largely disregarded this band because of some of the early lyrics (which I've found out were associated with the vocalist that Martin van Drunen replaced). Their reunion albums (from Death...The Brutal Way onward) are pretty clean lyrically and mostly deal with war and related topics like Hail of Bullets does. They also aren't as slow as I thought they'd be. They have the occasional longer, doomy track mixed-in with mostly rippers.

Good stuff though I actually like Hail of Bullets more. It took me awhile to check them out because of the early lyrics.

Black Rider wrote:Good stuff though I actually like Hail of Bullets more. It took me awhile to check them out because of the early lyrics.

I have one HoB and I like it. Need to spend more time with them.

I read interviews that said that van Drunen actually changed some of the lyrics on The Rack so that it wouldn't be satanic because he wasn't comfortable with that. There's still a couple songs on there I'm not sure about and one on Last One on Earth. I'll have to decide how I want to navigate that and if it's worth getting those two albums.

I'm pretty sure his brother is Theologian David Van Drunken.

I've been familiar with the two early Autopsy classics for some time, but I recently spent some time exploring their later discography. Their new album from last year may be the best thing they've done since Mental Funeral, but there's a lot of good stuff in-between. The Headless Ritual has one of the best songs from their career.

Autopsy. That's another one. Old school primitive doom death. I didn't realize they were still going. Wil have to check those albums out.

Just leaving a note to remind everyone that the entire Jungle Rot discography rules.

Jungle Rot is the AC/DC of death metal imo, every album is the same which is great if you like it. I throw in a few songs but that's it.

Black Rider wrote:Jungle Rot is the AC/DC of death metal imo, every album is the same which is great if you like it. I throw in a few songs but that's it.

Eh, everyone says that but I don't really agree. There was a lot of thrash infuence/thrashy riffs on Skin the Living. It also has a darker atmosphere and rougher production. This carried over some on to Slaughter the Weak which is kind of transitional. On Dead and Buried they got a clear production and settled on those mid-paced songs with huge caveman riffs that make up the greater proportion of this album, Fueled By Hate, and a lot of War Zone. It seems like they've varied it up some over recent albums. The newest one is a bit more uptempo, more blastbeats, more traditionally catchy with even some melodic guitar leads. Lots of good stuff. My favorite is Dead and Buried for peak big, dumb beat-you-over-the-head riffs.

Although they are more brutal and technical, I'm still going to mention Nile here (consider this thread "SonOfNun talks about Death Metal.")

I've been a big fan of Nile's first four since around the time they came out. I never really went further. Lately, I've been exploring their more recent albums and I've been very impressed. At the Gate of Sethu seems to be regarded as one of the weaker albums in their discography but after listening to it repeatedly lately, I have no idea why. I'd actually rank it over some of the early albums. The songwriting is so tight, the production is clear and wipes away the wall of sound, the songs are memorable. It's one of their best.

At the Gate of Sethu was the first I heard from them. Love it. The title track is one of my favorites. Nice, thrashy riff. I like the production.

One of the biggest complaints I hear is about the production. Complete nonsense. It's not so dense and you can hear everything.

New Cannibal Corpse song dropped. Sounds like a Rutan track - very similar to recent Hate Eternal.

Any fans of this great record?

Yep, expected them to get big after this but they couldn't seem to keep the momentum.

Their follow-up didn’t do them any favors.

Pethead wrote:

Any fans of this great record?

I know for sure that 3 of the 4 guys who played on this are or were Christians at the time. Rick Rozz and Bill Andrews are currently to the best of my knowledge.

Great album regardless.