(Florida) Death Metal History

Unless you’re only into some of the new Death metal or Deathcore, then you probably know at least some part of American Death Metal history. That history being that so many influential and break through death metal bands paved the way for so many other bands out of The Sunshine State.

January’s issue of Revolver Magazine has a great article on the history of Florida Death Metal with contribution from David Vincent (Morbid Angel), Glen Benton (Deicide), John Tardy (Obituary), Paul Masvidal (Death, Cynic) and Scott Burns. If you don’t have a clue who Scott Burns is, he is responsible for many early productions of death metal bands from the Florida scene.

I highly recommend this article. It’s a great read and you get to see just how much of a demented bastard Glen Benton really is. The Article talks about how, when the grunge scene errupted in the early/mid 1990’s how like most other genres, Death Metal kind of got pushed back underground like most metal did.

Even these days with the rise of the Metal/Deathcore bands popping up like mushrooms on a damp spring day, the death metal bands that persevered through the slump still live on strong. Sadly, most snot-nose kids in the cookie-cutter bands we see all over the place, growling into the microphone haven’t a clue when, where or with whom the scene began to form and they could care less. Most of them just want fame and to make a few bucks. Unless they present themselves as something epic, that’s all they’ll ever make…a few bucks. Regardless of the garbage that plagues the shelves of record stores and myspace, we’ll always have the bands that put the American Death Metal scene together, whether they’re from Florida, NY, California or Hell’s Half Acres. They can’t take away what’s already been carved in to metal history no matter how much they taint it.

Also, yesterday, December 13th marks the day that Chuck Schuldiner of Death, died at a far too young age of 34 years old back in 2001 of brain cancer. Chuck was one of the first great pioneers of the genre.

R.I.P., Chuck~

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