When I announced our week dedicated to the most important Death Metal bands of all time yesterday, I guess everyone had one band in mind: Death. They’re an obvious choice, and were the very first band to spring to my mind when I came up with this idea. My idea was to either cover them first or last, and ultimately decided to go with the fathers of Death Metal first.
Death were started under the name of Mantas in 1983. Mantas recorded five demos, including the infamous Death By Metal demo, before changing their name to Death. “Evil Chuck” Schuldiner; vocalist, guitarist and temporarily bassist of the band; named the band Death to turn the death of his brother Frank into something positive.
The name “Death,” and the early demo Death By Metal, are also the reasons why the genre was named Death Metal. Early Death Metal bands usually played a heavier Thrash Metal style, up until Death, and some notable other bands, changed the game. In the early and mid 80’s, people therefore referred to this style of music as Death’s metal — which over time turned into Death Metal.
This band is not only responsible for the name of this Extreme Metal genre, they’re also responsible for a number of groundbreaking metal releases. While Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy are landmarks of the early Death Metal scene, Individual Thought Patterns and especially Symbolic were pioneering releases of Progressive Extreme Metal.
Symbolic was, and still is, one of the most important monuments in all of metal. Death were, and still are, one of the most important bands in Death Metal. That is the reason why I just couldn’t skip this band in this one-week column. Death Metal without Death wouldn’t be Death Metal.
Death – Empty Words
Death ’til Death introduction – Day 1: Death – Day 2: Possessed – Day 3: Morbid Angel
Day 4: Cannibal Corpse – Day 5: Nile – Day 6: Hypocrisy – Day 7: Obituary
