Death Metal

Death metal is extreme metal built on heavily distorted, downtuned guitars, fast tremolo and palm-muted riffs, blast beats with double-kick drumming, and guttural growled vocals. California’s Possessed coined the name on 1985’s Seven Churches, and Florida’s Death made the first pure death-metal album, Scream Bloody Gore, in 1987, turning Tampa’s Morrisound studio into the genre’s hub. Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Cannibal Corpse cemented its brutal, complex sound. Themes run to death, horror, gore, and the grotesque.