Your way in
Death metal 1985
Guttural vocals, low tunings, blast beats and tremolo picking. Thrash pushed past the limit of legibility, with two founding schools: Florida and Stockholm.
- Heaviness
- 10
- Speed
- 9
- Melody
- 4
- Where from
- Florida / Sweden
- Tempo
- 120-260 bpm
- Song length
- 3.5-6 min
- Written about
- Death itself, Anatomy and disease, War, The occult
- Vocals
- Growled or shrieked
Why this one
| You said | Death metal | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| A growl or a shriek When someone is singing, what should come out? | harsh | 100% | ×3 |
| As heavy as it gets How much weight do you want behind it? | 10 out of 10 | 100% | ×2 |
| The seventies and eighties Does it matter when it was made? | 1985 | 100% | ×1 |
| The dark What should the words be about? | Death itself, Anatomy and disease, War, The occult | 100% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 100% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 4 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, era 1, about 1 out of 7. Death metal ties with the next, and won on being the broader of the two. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1The one to put on first
Entombed, Left Hand Path 1990
Entombed - Left Hand Path. The first twenty seconds explain the entire Swedish sound.
- 2Then
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5One step further in
Entombed, Wolverine Blues 1993
Entombed - Wolverine Blues. Death metal you can tap your foot to.
The first is Death metal's own entry point. After it come Death metal's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Crust punk 80%
D-beat soaked in metal and mud: thick tone, apocalyptic themes, trousers unwashed since 1989.
On the other branch of the tree entirely, and 6 steps from Death metal.
The way into Crust punk -
Post-metal / atmospheric sludge 74%
Sludge with post-rock logic: long songs, crescendos and instrumental passages. Neurosis invented the form.
4 steps from Death metal, meeting it only at Heavy metal.
The way into Post-metal / atmospheric sludge
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- A growl or a shriek put 78 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Alternative rock, Blues rock, Doom metal. Worth 3 of 7.
- As heavy as it gets put 13 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Rock and roll, Folk rock, Country rock. Worth 2 of 7.
- The seventies and eighties put 4 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Kawaii metal, New nu metal, Progressive metalcore. Worth 1 of 7.
- The dark put 119 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Punk rock, Hardcore punk, Alternative rock. Worth 1 of 7.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.