Ok, if someone wants to start a thread for newer death metal, that's fine. This thread is about old school death (should have been done long ago). We're talking Possessed, Death, Nihilist/Entombed, Asphyx, Carcass, Gorefest, Atheist and all the rest that you know (hopefully) and love (obviously).

To kick things off, I want to say that I have just discovered tonight Pestilence and Ripping Corpse. Why the fuck had I not heard either of these bands before? It's a shame, but I rectified the situation immediately by ordering some CD's. Has anyone else "discovered" some old school classics recently that they want to share?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ezatldude,

Ripping Corpse is / was a great band. They are now Dim Mak. The former guitarist left RC in the early 90's to join Morbid Angel, Eric. He is still working with his own project Hate Eternal. Sweetness and Anti_god off of Dreaming with the Dead are absolute masterpieces in death metal.

Death, Chuck Schuldiner. Wish he was still around - Death was a true pioneer in the metal arena. The growth from SBG to SoP is amazing. I can't say enough about Chuck, every song was great. Pull the Plug, doesn't get more classic death metal than a sing along song about dying.

Along with Death back in the day I was a big fan of Obituary who put out another disk a few years ago - Frozen in Time. Classic Obit sound that harkens back to Cause of Death - which is a mighty fine death metal album.

Morbid Angel - Blessed are the Sick is another to check out.

Napalm Death. Now this can go any number of ways - the old noisy-hardcorish-punk-death they did at the start was ok, then Suffer the Children comes along and it's all good, then the controversy over the vocals being processed to sound that way. I still like me some Napalm - but it no longer sounds the same to me.

Cannibal Corpse still has a wet puss filled spot in my heart, alot of people hated on the replacement vocalist - I thought that first album after the change was pretty good, on the level of The Bleeding by Corpse.

That's it for now.

I can't add much in here - everyone's already bagged the great bands!

Spot on for the Obituary reference. John Tardy has to be one of the most disgustingly innovative vocalists in the whole genre. He has his own unique style and I loved the way he didn't need a lyric sheet to get the point across. He was sonically offensive. Great stuff. Mike Patton has admitted in The Wire that he took more than a few notes watching Tardy perform. A rare thing for Patton to admit having influences.

Napalm Death have always been the wild card in this sort of thing. One foot in punk, one in death metal and another in grindcore. They were indeed a three-legged entity it would seem. I love the really extreme stuff. From Enslavement to Obliteration is my favourite by them.

Carcass were amazing, although I never felt they actually qualified as bona-fide death metal - every album threw up something new (literally!).

So much good stuff.

Shall I start the the old Chris Barnes vs George Fisher argument? (YAWN!) Both are great vocalists - end of.

I have to admit my library is sorely lacking any Obituary albums. I don't know why, but I never got into them. Time for me to revisit/re-evaluate...

You can get hold of Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death on one double disc CD, along with 6 bonus demo tracks from both albums. I managed to buy it for £5 in a sale.

Personally, those are my two favourite releases and the package is a bit of a bargain. The catalogue number is RR8360-2

As I say, Tardy's voice is the main attraction particularly on Slowly We Rot (there are no lyrics!) although ex-Death guitarist James Murphy contributes much to the proceedings on Cause of Death.

Without Tardy they'd probably sound quite generic albeit very 'sludgey'. However, John's voice is so vile it's fantastic. Hands down, my favourite death metal vocalist.

Tardy is the distinguishing factor, let's not leave out Trevor - his riffs define Obituary just as much as John's vox. James certainly added a very sweet vibe to cause of death, that intro solo for the title song is just awesome.

You can't go wrong with Duncans suggestion of the double disk with Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death. Volleyball is a word you'll hear repeated throughout SWR....leaves is another word - the rest are just vocal sounds if I recall correctly, no actual words.

Another band I can't recall the name of - they had a song called 'Catatonia' and some of the lyrics are - 'i hate myself and want to die'...can't recall their name. oh yeah - Suffocation.

I've got a few for ya:

Brutality - Screams of Anguish

Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade

Torchure - Beyond the Veil

Therion - Beyond Sanctorum

Demilich - Nespithe

Gorguts - Considered Dead

Gorguts - The Erosion of Sanity

quote:

Originally posted by Duncan Black:
You can get hold of Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death on one double disc CD, along with 6 bonus demo tracks from both albums. I managed to buy it for £5 in a sale.

Yeah, these double discs are great. I've already got a bunch of them (Mercyful Fate, Sodom, Pestilence, etc). Except for Obituary, I had a bunch of Death, Suffocation and Sepultura downloads, but not the CD's, so I finally ponied up for these yesterday. Check out my haul:

Sepultura Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation/Schizophrenia/Beneath The Remains

Obituary The End Complete/World Demise/Slowly We Rot/Cause of Death

Death Human/Scream Bloody Gore/Leprosy

Suffocation Effigy of the Forgotten/Pierced from Within (also double disc)

Some good stuff in there. Human and Leprosy are essential Death Metal. Can't praise those albums enough.

Apparently Napalm Death opted for the same producer as Death after hearing Leprosy - at least that's how I remember it. Pretty brutal record that one.

I think 'The End Complete' was where Obituary started to ebb a bit IMO, still a good recording....listen to the title track then dig up 'Beneath a Blackened Sky' by Six Feet Under.

Good set of disks!

I guess Deicide should come up in here somewhere. The initial stuff was more speed and notes over substance - when Once Upon the Cross came out they started to refine themselves and deliver. They would have emerged towards the end of your timeframe.

quote:

Originally posted by ezatldude:

Death Human/Scream Bloody Gore/Leprosy

Suffocation Effigy of the Forgotten/Pierced from Within (also double disc)

Human and both of the Suffocation discs you listed are some of my very favorite death metal albums of all time.

Deicide, definitely counts! \m/

Oooh, I thought of another one:

Incantation - Onward to Golgotha

Then again, maybe I've missed the point of this thread. Here I am throwing out album recommendations, and everyone else seems to be waxing nostalgic (which is fine; I just took the thread as an invitation to try and turn you guys on to some stuff you might not have listened to). Regardless, I'll be checking back to see if anyone mentions some obscure old-school classics I haven't checked out before.

haha Briznow - it's all good. If not for word of mouth where would alot of metal be?

How about Celtic Frost? The early stuff is borderline death metal. For the time period anyway.

Just ordered these!

Cancer - To the Gory End (the debut album before the one with James Murphy)

Morgoth Resurrection Absurd/Eternal Fall (1989/90) - These are the EPs from this German band, and they kill.

Morgoth Cursed - The debut LP.

I remember being stood next to the vocalist from Cancer at a Lawnmower Deth gig in Wrexham. Was his name Carl or something? He was bloody massive.

Oh what a great time it was for me back then... I stll to this day listen to Death Metal and tend to stick to only the old school stuff, new age Death is more about speed the vocals just are not what they were back then.

Here are some of the bands that I did not see listed that you should track down:

One of my fav's is a band from Germany, recorded in 1992 called Torchure and the Cd was called Beyond The Veil. Two of the band members died in a car crash after this Cd was released. They released one more Cd with new members but it was not anywhere as good as Beyond The Veil and they broke up after that.

Edge Of Sanity also from Germany has lot of good Cd's from that time, but the best and maybe one of the Death Metal Cd's ever was Unorthodox recorded in 1992.

Dark Tranquillity is a Sweden band that I loved back in 91 with their demo called Trail of Life Decayed. After that they were just different and I quit listening to them. Ofcourse the tape was damaged over time and now doesent play any more but they released a Cd in 02 called Exposures In Retrospect and Denial and they added that 91 demo at the end. The whole Cd was very good.

If you pick Morbid Angel you have to get Alters of Madness, one of the best Death Metal Cd's from the late 80's.

If you like Deicide you have to check out their first Cd called Deicide. They still have new releases till this day and are very good, but I don't think they will ever top this one.

I could go on forever about the old school Death Metal but I wont. If your realy interested then hit me up.

It's a strange thing, but metal seems to evoke a lot more nostalgia than other genres.

I remember that Deicide album quite well. At the time it was released, I didn't like them much, but the album was fantastically useful when the Jehovas Witnesses called round. They used to retreat pretty quickly - can't imagine why!

To be fair to the album, Steve's drumming is pretty incredible. Over time I have slowly warmed to it. All the Satanic stuff may have been a bit silly, but it's an undeniably entertaining record and it doesn't mess about. All the songs are short, brutal and to the point (the evil spikey red point).

Oh god that is so funny Duncan, I used to put on Deicide when the Jehovas came around too. And yeah the drumming was pretty incredible. The Satanic stuff kind of just went with the style of music back then, most bands were not Satanic in real life, but then again some of them were. Oh and lets not forget about the Christian Death Metal bands???

There were a few weren't there? I can't remember what they were called though.

To be honest, having any kind of religious/political philosophy in death metal is futile when all vocal expression sounds like -

'WOOOOOOOOAAAAAHHHHHRRRRGH!'

Death Metal bands could be writing lyrics about egg & cress sandwiches for all I know. I just like the sound of it all. It's a very pleasant indulgence!