How did you get into Death Metal (Metal)?

Dethklok converted the hell out of me to switch up my musical interest from just Hip-Hop and J-pop, J-rap to Metal. Because of it I've never felt more fulfilled and satisfied musically.

Prior to getting into hard rock and metal, pretty much everything I listened to was country or 50s/60s rock (Motown, surfer stuff, the doo-wop era). The first honest-to-goodness metal song I actually paid attention to was when I saw the video for "Wherever I May Roam", and it was like lighting a fire in my brain, much the same as "November Rain". The latter was about as close to anything resembling a religious experience as I've had in my life, that's how much my worldview shifted.

edited 24th Jun '14 9:59:58 AM by Willbyr

Sometime in high school when I found the really neutered lead-heavy "technical" stuff like Necrophagist and Spawn of Possession, gradually working my way through numerous facebook recommendations into not-so-neutered bands like Demigod, Morbid Angel, Suffocation, and Necrophobic.

One of the end results (along with Black Metal, Noise Rock and the more extreme Industrial subgenres) of my high school era shift into listening to progressively more extreme music (without ever actually abandoning the less-extreme stuff I liked before, since musical extremity is not truly a measure of quality IMO, just another aspect that can be employed or not, well or not). The first bands I got into in the genre were stuff like Sepultura (80s era), Death, Opeth (not a perfect example, due to being fairly proggy), Morbid Angel, Atheist, Cynic and any number of Melodic Death Metal bands.

@ Stillbirth: I don't see what's so neutered about the bands you mentioned above, but we probly have different ideas about what constitutes that...

A lot of modern day technical death metal sounds increasingly less death metal to me and more like something from the post-Yngwie Malmsteen school of fretboard worship just set to blast beats and growls.

Well, it is true that that influence is there- no arguing with that. Fair enough, I guess. Still, not sure that necessarily makes it bad. Probly a matter of opinion, that...

Still, true as far as it goes I s'pose. It's not pure anything.

There is some very nice tech-death stuff, but as I have said before, my idea of "heavy" is either like being stalked by a hungry jaguar or being beaten over the head with a cinder-block.

I came to metal through drone and experimental music, although that formed my appreciation of doom and sludge more than anything else. My fondness for some faster strains of metal can be blamed on my friends both on and offline, my initial indifference ("needs more noise") gradually giving way to affection.

Venereology is still heavier than any actual death metal record, though; what it lacks in dynamics, it makes up for in brutality. Delicious brutality.

I never really got into Harsh Noise myself (everyone's got limits, and that's mine), but that does seem an interesting and unusual angle from which to approach Metal from... You're probly the first person I've met who's come at it from THAT angle...

One needs to approach noise carefully. Unless you are a very particular kind of person, simply slapping on some Masonna and cranking it is not going to give you any real insight. You initiate yourself by degrees and come to appreciate the nuances and the soundcraft.

I can enjoy a fair share of technical death metal but it tends to veer away from the widdly-widdly faux-fusion shred stuff and closer to stuff like Returner, older Mortal Decay, Zealotry, early 90's Sadus and when they count, the more experimental dissonant bands like Diskord. Basically, "oldschool", "atmospheric", or more discordant stuff.

Sadus are a great band, dude. How do you feel about later-period Death? Also, I've heard some Mortal Decay and liked it well enough.

I have a fairly high tolerance for noise in general- Noise Rock (Swans, Sonic Youth, Boredoms, anything Steve Albini did, Butthole Surfers, The Jesus Lizard, Dinosaur Jr, etc.), early Industrial (Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Einsturzende Neubauten, Nurse With Wound, Laibach, early Cabaret Voltaire, etc.) and Noise Pop (The Jesus And Mary Chain, Pavement, Archers Of Loaf, Yo La Tengo, etc.) all have a decent amount of noise to 'em and are genres RI like a fair amount. And I kinda have a fondness for the Rhythmic/Power Noise/Technoid genre, as well. I just find that there's not much to "grab onto" when it comes to Harsh Noise. Not my thing, I guess...

If you want something to grab onto, I will suggest Merzbow's Cycle. As overpowering as it can get as it goes on, there are different motifs and themes within it that are explored as the album progresses. Despite being quite outside the normal realms of tonality, it is very much a composed work—something that I could say of most of Akita's work, but Cycle is one of the most "symphonic." Similarly, Merzbird is basically a power noise album, and thus fairly approachable.

Now I'm thinking of Prurient's The Black Vase and how well it reflects Dom Fernow's love of black metal without so much as a single guitar chord.

Listenable but confused in many cases, painfully so on TSOP and ITP. Moderatey well played although stylistically uncertain and nowhere near as great as the great hype machine makes it out to be compared to its contemporaries. Chuck clearly just wanted to play prog/power/thrash but couldn't quite seem to nail it. It's a shame Control Denied didn't last long as it was increasingly clear that type of metal was where his heart really was.

My interest in metal in general started around 1999, when I saw a Metallica video on MTV, and I discovered a lot of bands though a hard rock show on the radio. When I was 13 (in 2001) I used to browse through Allmusic to find new bands. I think I saw Death listed as a similar artist to some thrash band I liked (possibly Slayer) and then proceeded to download a couple of their songs from Kazaa, and then discovered bands like Atheist, Deicide, Morbid Angel and (later) Napalm Death. Still, I wasn't huge into the genre until around 2005 (being mostly a thrasher), when I really started getting into a lot of modern death metal like Nile, Kronos and Arsis, as well as a few "old school" and old school sounding bands. By 2007, I was mostly getting sick of the modern stuff and started getting drawn towards more old school sounding stuff (not just in death metal) and that's where my tastes mostly lie now.

edited 26th Jun '14 8:54:50 AM by supergod

Started getting into Metal my first year of high school. The records I listened to the most were Ministry's Pslam 69, Metallica's blehk album and White Zombie's Astro Creep. I then got into Thrash and the mainstream metal at the time (mallcore crap like Pantera and Machine Head). It wasn't until I met other metalheads in uni in my early 20s that I got into other forms of Metal.

Not sure how Pantera and Machine head are "Mallcore", but "Mallcore" as a term is so overused that it pretty much means nothing (Seriously- I hear it used to refer to everything from Pop Punk and Emo to Groove Metal, Metalcore / Deathcore, Melodic Death Metal and Alternative Metal... I personally think it's just "whatever any given Metalhead dislikes", which is fine, but it's still a useless term. It bugs me...) , so whatever. Can't fault you for disliking Groove Metal, it's just the term that bothers me...

@ Stillbirth: personally, I like 'em. Nothing wrong with blurring genres a bit (or a lot). I feel like they did it pretty well at least... And the musicianship was great, I think. Again, my opinion here- I suspect I lack your commitment to brutality when it comes to Death Metal...

Also, it's very regrettable Control Denied didn't last- it was an interesting direction for Chuck to take, for sure... Chuck's death was depressing.

@ JHM: I'll hafta check that one out. Might be able to get me into the genre...

Pantera more or less laid down most of the foundations for the jumpdafuckup/tuff gai/Hot Topic rock movement, of which Machine Head are one of its most prominent followers. There's a reason the term is meant mostly for the earlier 2000's whatevercore and nu-stuff and not the recent "indie metal".

It's not that they were blurring genres (something that has never been a very big achievement in the first place) as much as they have always just been pretty okay regardless of whatever era it was. Chuck had a tendency to find great musicians but his compositions never really took full advantage of what they were capable of.

Still, though- like I said, I've heard people use the term to describe Pop Punk, Emo and other things that aren't even Metal- I object to the term mostly for the vagueness of it (I maintain that Mallcore is not a genre). I don't really care whether or not people like or dislike something (the only person who's tastes I'm truly concerned about are mine)- I'm fine with people hating whatever they want, for the most part. My objection to the term "Mallcore" is solely due to its uselessness as a descriptor.

Well, I suppose you have a point there about those two bands. Still, it seems odd to me, simply cause those bands, whatever their faults may be (I'm mostly indifferent to them- don't love 'em, don't hate 'em, just don't care), aren't really anything-core, though their influence on -core groups is pretty obvious...

Well, at least we can agree on the high caliber of the musicians he managed to find. Though it's odd to hear you say that Death's compositions are just okay, given that Death are widely considered to be one of the key/founding Death Metal bands... Generally, genres aren't hard to blur, in theory. Doing it well takes a bit more effort, but still. I don't regard either genre purity or eclecticism as superior to the other- they are both valid artistic choices, if done well... Of course, "well" is very subjective, which is where the arguing starts...

Mallcore isn't meant to reference a particular genre as much as it is whole swathes of bands associated with a particular subcultural grouping or general aesthetic. It's a derogatory umbrella term and those are rarely if ever intended to be accurate.

Even compared to other early death metal they honestly don't hold up very well. Necrovore, Revenant, Insanity, Master/Death Strike, Exmortis, Bloodspill, Morbid Angel, Necrodeath, Dream Death, Revenant, Sepultura, R.A.V.A.G.E./Atheist, Necrophagia and so on touched on a lot of major ground as well and in many cases were further ahead of the curve. Death and Mantas are undeniably important but somehow I doubt the "godfather of death metal" crowd wouldn't be anywhere near as rabid and revisionist if Death hadn't gone for the more accessible proggy sound.

edited 28th Jun '14 5:15:44 AM by StillbirthMachine

Fair enough. Still bugs me, but whatever. As long as everyone gets that it's decidedly that, rather than actually a genre (trust me, I've met people who think it is... those people are... special).

Still seems to me like a generic term for stuff any given Metalhead hates, and thus the meaning varies depending on who's saying it. However, there does seem to be a correlation between bands called "Mallcore" and the dumb, thuggish bro demographic, as well as the whiny teen demographic, too. No strawmanning intended, since people who fit both descriptions do exist.

Hmmm. Well, I will concede you've got a point- they certainly weren't the only ones doing that sorta thing. I don't really see anything to disagree with here- I know Sepultura's, Necrophagia's and Morbid Angel's albums from the time period are quite good from experience, and Atheist are a favorite Tech-Death band of mine... I've heard of Dream Death, Insanity and Revenant, too. Should probly go check those out...

I don't think anyone who's been into metal for over a year thinks it's a genre at this point, much in the same way most people see "Norsecore" as shorthand for "bad second wave Scandinavian styled black metal".

In general I despise the "one day band x happened and soon after genre y" narrative a lot of often wet behind the ears 'bangers and record labels try to paint because it hugely oversimplifies the complicated process of how genres come to be and slaps a lot of bands who often worked in obscurity with little recognition out of diehard circles these days square in the face.

I've never heard that term before. Who says that? It's... a bad one.

I've been into Metal for about 10 years (I'm almost 25), so don't make any assumptions about me being a "wet-behind the ears banger". Also, I listen to too many different things to even self-identify as a banger (belonging to one subculture is WAY too confining, IMO). Besides, we've already established to both of our satisfactions that genres are never the work of one band- though a lot of Metalheads do seem to think Black Sabbath, for example (who are awesome, I make no negative judgement of their work) are the ONLY band from the late 60s/early 70s who were Metal/an influence on Metal, when the truth was far more complex...

Please refrain from making Strawman assumptions about me, or putting words in my mouth- I never said Death were the ONLY band doing Death Metal in the late 80s, merely the best-known and most widely talked about one. Whether or not that is any kind of valid measure of... anything, really, is for you to decide for yourself and me to decide for myself. Also, obscurity does not equal quality, no matter how much a few people from a wide variety of musical subcultures (Metalheads, Hipster, Punks, hell, even Goths get in on that one, and there's no denying it or writing it off as a straw argument- only a few people do it, but trust me, they do). It's just another variable- there are bands that are obscure who suck, and bands who are obscure who are excellent. And everything in between...

Genres, or what we call genres, tend to bubble up out of collections of like-minded people when no-one else is looking. They only stop being a trend and start being a codified style when other people start writing about it, which sometimes happens after the fact. Sometimes it never even gets a name: I would say that Jackie-O Motherfucker, Vibracathedral Orchestra and Sunroof! have all worked in a very particular vein of free improvised music with elements of drone, free jazz, noise and traditional folk musics, but I have no idea what I would call that style.

That's a very good way of putting it. Also, I've never heard of ay of those bands, but the mix you describe sounds potentially intriguing. I may need to investigate this...