I was in my mid teens, working as a dishwasher during the time. My coworkers were all in to the grunge thing and were neo-hippies to boot. We had a prep room where we would prep food and had a cd player in there to listen to music while we worked. I would often get ridiculed for my music and get the typical “Kill your mother, kill your father!” mocking when they walked in to the prep room while I was working. I would either turn it up louder or change it to something a little heavier, darker or evil sounding. I didn’t mind grunge so much, but disliked a lot of people that listened to it for their total lack of having an open mind. Most of them were in to it because it was the popular thing at the time.

During that time you had to already be an established band or release an album of epic proportion in order to survive. Even the ones that struggled or didn’t pull through during that era still live in our hearts. The bands on this list were the ones that survived by releasing truly amazing work and deserve the recognition. I know I’ve missed a load of albums that deserve to be on a list of this sort, but keep in mind it’s just “10 Metal Albums” and not a “Top 10″ list.

Flotsam And Jetsam: Cuatro. Released in 1992, Flotsam And Jetsam were a radio hit band and had already been on the scene for almost 10 years when Cuatro was released. Their fourth album and their fourth bass player, Cuatro took a slight step away from their the thrash metal roots. Often overlooked and forgotten about, Cuatro was and still is a great album.

Anthrax: The Sound Of White Noise: (1993) Anthrax’s first album with, in my opinion their best singer, John Bush previously of Armored Saint, The Sound Of White Noise had so many killer songs on it. Beginning with Potter’s Field, Only, Room For One More, Packaged Rebellion, the list goes on until the end.

Iron Maiden: Fear OF the Dark. Released in 1992, Fear Of The Dark is never considered one of Maiden’s best albums but it’s not their worst. Sure it may not be a classic like most of the 80’s albums, but it was one of their best of the 90’s and has plenty of great tunes on it. This was also Bruce Dickenson’s last album before his return to the band in 1999.

Death: Individual Thought Patterns. Death’s 3rd release in the 90’s came in 1993 with Individual Thought Patterns. I bigger, cleaner sounding album than any one before it. ITP was my first taste of exceptionally technical death metal. If there is one subgenre of a subgenre you could label Death as, it would be Progressive Death Metal. Chuck Schuldiner always raised the bar a little higher with each album, but Individual thought patterns took it up a few notches.

Carcass: Heartwork. In 1993 Carcass were criticized by a lot of long time fans as breaking away from the grindcore sound and heading in more of a death metal direction. You can actually hear that transition in Necrotism, but regardless of what specific sound direction Heartwork took, the sound was amazingly clean, fast and ferocious. Still quite underground and unrecognized by the outside world, their Heartwork video put them on the map all around the world.

Entombed: Wolverine Blues. Another album criticized by their fans due to a lesser death metal feel and more of a “Death N’ Roll” sound to it, Wolverine Blues was still a great album. It may not have been fast but it was still heavy as all hell and punchy enough to be a classic. The title track and others such as Hollowman, Full Of Hell and Out Of Hand, you can’t go wrong with this album.

Suffocation: Pierced From Within: Suffocation released their last album for a long time in 1995. Pierced from within was the best sounding album of their first 3. The production was cleaner and Roadrunner Records was taking off like a bat out of hell. Unfortunately this was almost the end of Suffocation as touring as a death metal band at this time was barely livable income. 9 years later the legacy would begin again.

Fear Factory: Soul Of A New Machine. Before Nu-Metal actually had a name there were bands like NIN and Fear Factory releasing albums in the early 90’s. I don’t think it was until Korn’s self titled release that people started to truly hate what was to become a monster mainstream metal genre. Soul Of A New Machine was just considered a new metal band with their first major label release. Not an album that catapulted them in to the nu-metal world like Demanufacture, but a great album.

Helmet: Meantime. Helmet’s 1992 release introduced a slightly different sound to the metal scene. Coming out of NYC, The post hardcore band still brought a slight hardcore sound to them with stop-and-go riffs that were heavy enough to be called metal and a sound that was still raw enough to keep them out of the mainstream. Most people can only name one song from Helmet, that being Unsung.

Sepultura: Chaos A.D. Another band that was raising the bar with every release was Sepultura. With a consistently small change of sound to each album, Sepultura released, arguably their best album with Chaos A.D. in 1993. This was also a turning point as we saw more down-tuning that ultimately lead to Roots, the worst album of the Cavalera, Sepultura era.

Metal never died during the grunge era and it was never mainstream. Hair metal/glam rock was sort of mainstream, but the metal we love with the ferocity, controversy and darkness was still well underground. If anything Grunge did us a favor by decimating glam and weeding out the bands that weren’t quite good enough to make it. Sadly there were some bands that were good enough but fell to the mass-marketing of grunge. No big label wanted to sign another metal band when grunge was the money maker. Lucky for a lot of metal bands there was still the independent labels like Roadrunner, Metal Blade and Nuclear Blast that knew that grunge was only a fad and believed in their metal bands and fans. Every genre has it’s fads and trends, but sooner or later they die or fade away and the true warriors and torch bearers of that genre keep marching strong. The rest end up on VH1 classics…

(all images: Amazon.com)

Post from: Metal Martyr

Metalhammer.de’s top 10 Death Metal Songs

1. Cannibal Corpse – ‘Hammer Smashed Face’ from Tomb Of The Mutilated
2. Arch Enemy – ‘We Will Rise’ (from Anthems Of Rebellion
3. Death – ‘Crystal Mountain’ from Symbolic
4. Amon Amarth – ‘Pursuit Of Vikings’ from Fate Of Norns
5. Vader – ‘Carnal’ from Black To The Blind 
6. Sepultura – ‘Arise’ from Arise 
7. Carcass – ‘Heartwork’ from Heartwork 
8. In Flames – ‘Only For The Weak’ from Clayman 
9. Kataklysm – ‘In Shadows And Dust’ from Shadows & Dust 
10. Behemoth – ‘Christians To The Lions’ from Thelema.6

And now for mine…and this wasn’t easy by any means.

Metal Martyr’s Top 10 (Favorite) Death Metal Songs

1. Death – Zero Tolerance from Symbolic. This is one of Death’s best records and was a great follow up to Individual Thought Patterns.
2. Carcass – Carneous Cacofinny from Necrotism: Descanting The Insalubrious. Sadly most people only know of the album Heartwork, which is a great album but so is Necrotism’ and Swan Song.
3. Morbid Angel – God Of Emptiness from Covenant. I’ve always loved David Vincent’s voice. While this song is not “brutally fast”, it’s a slow, heavy and evil sounding song that would probably give small children nightmares if played before bedtime.
4. Entombed – Hollowman from the Hollowman Ep and Wolverine Blues
5. Grave - …And Here I Die Satisfied from the Ep of the same name.
6. Malevolent Creation – Self Important Freak from Joe Black.
7. Cannibal Corpse – Stripped Raped & Strangled from The Bleeding. Typical Cannibal Corpse lyrics, but the guitar is what got me hooked.
8. Suffocation – Breeding The Spawn from Pierced From Within.
9. Bloodbath – Death Delirium from Resurrection Trough Carnage.
10. Obituary – The End Complete from The End Complete.

I could probably keep on going with this list all day. How can you narrow a list like this down to 10? It really had me looking back in to my collection and remembering a lot of great death metal songs, especially ones that never got enough credit or play. So what would you top ten look like?

Post from: Metal Martyr

IGN.Com

• Frank Mullen – Suffocation
• Lars Göran Petrov – Entombed
• Paul Pavlovich – Assük
• David Vincent – Morbid Angel
• Mikael Akerfeldt – Opeth/ Bloodbath
• Antti Boman – Demilich
• John Tardy – Obituary
• Martin Van Duren – Hail Of Bullets
• Chuck Schuldiner – Death
• Thomas Lindburg – At The Gates

Check out my picks after the fold…

• Frank Mullen of Suffocation – Suffocation are one of the earlier pioneers of NYC Death Metal. While I haven’t heard much of the earlier stuff I really dig their last self titled effort on Relapse Records and I think the modern generation would probably dig this one as well. The production is much better and vocals have more clarity to them. This band kills live too!
• Lars Göran Petrov Of Entombed – Another very more clarified death metal voice, I’d have to pick Wolverine Blues as my Favorite, and the Hollowman EP comes in a close second. With all the other “deathcore” and death metal out there these days, this is one of the staple bands out of the overlooked death metal scene.
• David Vincent of Morbid Angel – I was fan as soon as I heard the doom ridden, creepiness of God Of Emptiness. The entire Covenant album is awesome as well as Blessed Are The Sick, Alters Of Madness and Domination. Domination doesn’t get as much credit as it should.
• Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth/Bloodbath – Even though I have only come to really know Opeth and Bloodbath in the past 6 or 8 months, I can’t get past the sound the Mikael’s voice. First you wouldn’t expect such a vicious sound to come from the same pipes that sing the beautiful melodies that you hear in the softer Opeth songs. I only have 2 Opeth CDs, but Blackwater Park is an amazing album and Bloodbath’s Resurrection Through Carnage and the recent Unblessing The Purity EP are about as brutal as they come. I need to get the new Fathomless Mastery CD. Maybe the merch table at tonight’s Opeth show will have it.
• John Tardy of Obituary – John Tardy had a different sound to his voice than most of the death metal vocalists when they came in to the scene. A unique range with clarity and the more they progressed the better he sounded…to me anyway. It wasn’t a low guttural voice that had to be done with mic directly to mouth in an inaudible tone. He has a voice that stands out and makes it look and sound effortless. Ever tried to imitate his voice? The End Complete is my pick as well but World Demise is a great album too.
• Chuck Schuldiner of Death – Chuck was another unique voice like John Tardy. Not only could Chuck sing with a different range of most Death Metal vocalists, he could rip on guitar as well. My album pick would be Symbolic but if you want a good mix check out Fate: The Best Of Death. Death had a melodic yet brutal sound to them with speed and breakdowns that were hard to top.
• Jeff Walker of Carcass – Once more a unique voice…at the time. Now every other deathcore band tried to sound like Jeff, but they have no friggin’ clue who he is or the legacy of Carcass. As you can see, clarity in vocals is a big thing for me. I like to understand what they are saying. It makes it much easier to sing along when you know the words. Carcass’s Heartwork is a great metal album as well as the slightly slower and often under-rated Swansong.
• Chris Barnes Of Six Feet Under/ ex-Cannibal Corspe – Okay, this is the exception to the clarity thing. Some songs you can catch a lot of the words from Chris Barnes and some not so much. Chris just has that deep guttural voice that sounds grim and evil. Six Feet Under’s Debut album, Haunted is a great example of Chris’s voice as it most Cannibal Corpse’s early albums but mostly The Bleeding in my opinion.
• Maurizio Iacono of Kataklysm – Maurizio has a great death metal voice. Deep, clear and powerful. Their latest release, Prevail, is a great example of Maurizio’s voice. If I said that all the others sounded as good I would be lying because I have yet to explore much more of Kataklysm’s work.

Honorable Mentions

• Jörgen Santöm formerly of Grave
• Tim King Formerly Of Oppressor
• Johnny Hedlund of Unleashed

Check out IGN.Com list here.

Image ©MetalMartyr.Com 2008

Post from: Metal Martyr

I was a Jesus hating metal-head back then so the song that first sold me totally on this band was “I Need You“, which sound considerably like Entombed’s Blood Song. Why did it sell me? Cool lyrics: ” Pray to your god, you pray as you spit red. Pray to your god, your god will fail and you will be dead…”. I mean, come on. For any metal head that find religion revolting and hypocritical, those are lyrics to live by. These days my views have changed but the song is still cool. The rest of the songs are cool as well.

The production on this CD is not too bad. The vocals are bright enough with just enough reverb and the guitars sound thick. The lyrical content is the usual death metal extravaganza of Satan and Death, but that’s what we love about the music right? Sometimes. Jorgen Sandstrom was on vocals and bass back then, but Ola Lingren is the only original member to date taking the duties of Vocals and guitar. Jorgen left the band and went on to play in Entombed from 1995-2004.

Grave were signed to Century Media back then but after 15 years and 7 albums with Century, they most recently signed with Regain Records and released Dominion VIII back in April.

Image Source: Amazon.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

1. Entombed – Wolverine Blues
2. Carcass – Keep On Rotting IN The Free World
3. Amon Amarth – Ruins To My Memory
4. All That Remains – Chiron
5. Megadeth – 99 Ways To Die
6. Slipknot – Left Behind
7. Mushroomhead – Solitaire Unraveling
8. Cannibal Corpse – Make Them Suffer
9. Immortal – Call Of The Wintermoon
10. Grave – Soulless

Post from: Metal Martyr

Post from: Metal Martyr

After keying in the basic bands that every metalhead should be listening to I would try to bring it more modern by introducing bands that have come and gone like Guns N Roses. There is someone out there right now saying “But GNR aren’t gone, Axl just hasn’t put out the new CD yet”…trust me…G n R are dead but they are not forgotten. While more hardrock than metal in my opinion, you can’t deny the fact that they ruled their world during their day.

Moving on. I would also try to convince them to listen to some death metal to get a feel for what is to come in the present day metal. Bands like Carcass, Entombed, Morbid Angel, Grave, Sepultura, Obituary, etc., etc. And of course I would have to include some GOOD nu metal (your scratching your head wondering if there is such a thing). Bands like Nothingface, Slipknot, Mushroomhead, Fear Factory, and yes, even some Korn. Limp Bizket can kiss my choclate star fish, the only thing I would recommend for them is the trash can.

Moving Forward I would show them bands of today like Lamb Of God, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Yakuza, Hatebreed, Mastodon, Shadows Fall, Machinehead. Bands that are still on top of their game and just continue to get better with time.

I would also urge them to sit down and see just exactly where metal has gone and see what trends have come about in metal and show them how much carbon copy bands there are being signed by every other label out there. I would show them bands that have stood the test of time and bands that are fighting to stay in the scene due to the digital era.

These are just some of the things I would recommend to a new metal enthusiast. So that brings me to my question,(which may in turn introduce me to some new bands)…What would YOU recommend?

Image Source

Post from: Metal Martyr

Napalm Death: Silence Is Deafening Courtesy of Century Media

Celtic Frost: Ground Courtesy of Century Media

All That Remains: This Calling Courtesy of Prosthetic Records

Through The Eyes Of The Dead: Failure In The Flesh Courtesy Of Prosthetic Records

Post from: Metal Martyr

Entombed- Retaliation, courtesy of Threeman Records

Machinehead- Days Turn Blue To Grey, courtesy Of Road Runner Records

Arch Enemy- Beast Of Man, courtesy of Century Media

Behemoth- Prometherion, Cortesy Of Century Media

Lamb Of God- 11th Hour, courtesy of Prosthetic Records

There you have it. New downloads next week and remember, Keep it legal and support your favorite bands!

Post from: Metal Martyr

Released: 1993 Earache

I first heard the song “Wolverine Blues” on Headbangers ball back in late ‘93 and was instantly a fan. A week or two later co-worker had given me some money to pick up a few CD’s. The next day I went to a small local record stare and was picking up the CD’s for him and saw Wolverine Blues in the newer releases and only picked up one of the CD’s he wanted and ended up spending the rest of his money on this CD and Carcass’s “Heartwork”.

Like I said, I was an instant fan. I love how Eyemaster starts out the CD with Pin-Head’s (Hellraiser) “I Am The Way”. The guitar work on this record is simple crunchy power chord through out the whole CD yet the leads and solos keep it fresh and not too complicated as we expect from most Swedish death metal bands (honestly I don’t know If you could classify this band as death metal).

Bottom line is this CD kicks ass from beginning to end without compromise. If you haven’t had a chance to hear this CD do yourself of a favor and at least check it out on Amazon.com and sample a few songs. Also check out “Hollowman” for old school Entombed. Four Stars!!

Post from: Metal Martyr