What grounds an album as death metal? This occurs to me because after listening to Kreator’s Pleasure to Kill - it seems this album is a strong candidate for the first death metal album. It sounds more like Altars of Madness than either Death or Possessed.

Kreator was put into the death metal category back in the day for sure, when it was still in its formulaic stages.

For me, it is a combination of heaviness and off-rails, non-linear chaos. "Seven Churches" has that, as does "Haunting the Chapel", if we go back further.
"Pleasure to Kill" is heavier than both those records, but is a little more linear and based on simpler riffs (compare the riffing in "Carrion" to that of "Holy Hell" or "Pentagram", for example).

chromatic riffs.

Growls

I'm not sure that's the case.

Pleasure to Kill didn't have vocals that sounded all that different from Seven Churches or the first Cannibal Corpse album. Maybe slightly higher and raspier, but then we could say Altars of Madness has higher, raspier vocals as well.

Although, I personally consider AoM to be a prototype blackened death metal album. I have my reasons why

I don't really even listen to a lot of metal. But Alter of madness is the quintessential Death Metal album in my opinion. It's just so dirty, groovy, and fast.

Pleasure to Kill is not very far off. I listen to them side by side. I can see these bands playing back to back at a show.

One thing that seems unique about Pleasure to Kill is the drumming. It's like right on the cusp of being a blast beat.

I do believe you mean embryonic.

But yes Pleasure To Kill is 100% a death metal album. I'll go even further and say it's a missing link between Seven Churches and Scream Bloody Gore. I would nominate Dark Angel Darkness Descends for that as well.

The deep or harsh vocals.

Pleasure to kill is thrash metal with vein of proto black and death (like Darkness Descends )

Same Seven Churches is divisive if it’s death or extreme thrash so the dividing line it’s the growling…

And Altars of Madness have it

I'd say growls + heavier guitar sound than thrash + alternance of thrash beat, double bass kick and blast beats.



Plenty of music genres use chromatic riffs, it's not specific to death metal at all. And you can find pure death metal songs not using chromatisms at all.

No one of those albums are 100% death metal , not even Scream Bloody Gore.



All agreed!

Listen to Asphyx's 'The Rack', for a crash course in what death metal is all about.

I remember there was a thread on MA forum with a question about difference between black and death metal and there were a few posts where people tried to describe what death metal meant to them, including some quite detailed technical descriptions of the music - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=72092&hilit=difference
(But since you mentioned Kreator, I've found a similar thread with a discussion (but not very detailed) about how thrash metal differs from death metal - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49206&hilit=difference ).

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It's good to see that all the people in this current thread are actually posting their opinions/descriptions, and not mocking the OP in the way like some users in that old thread about black and death metal.

I remember listening to Possessed, Kreator, Death and Sodom in the 80s and thinking "It sucks that I'm only listening the Thrash. I can't wait for real Death Metal to be created so some pretentious douchebag that's not even born yet can tell me that I'm not a true Death Metal fan because these bands are only Thrash."

Pro-tip: People in the 80s that were listening to those bands and Destruction, Deathrow, early Sepultura, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Onslaught, Pestilence . . . they weren't listening to a lot of Anthrax or Helloween. The production levels improved massively in the 90s and this is what seems most modern fans of Death Metal are interested in much more than musicianship or actual style of playing.

Behind the irony of your comment, this is such a stupid and immature statement... Personally, I consider them thrash (or thrash/death) because while those bands were a first step towards what would become death metal, they still were deeply rooted in thrash metal and lack the combination of all the elements that would make the classic death metal sound, not just the production.

How old are you?

And you?

I think the heavy use of tremolo riffs is what gives Pleasure to Kill it's death metal flavor. Like, I'd agree that Ripping Corpse could basically be considered a death/thrash song.

Darkness Descends, on the other hand, I would not consider death metal at all. To me it's thrash pushed to it's most extreme without going into death metal territory.

The music theory knowledge in this thread is lacking, to say the least. Pure death metal is defined by predominantly chromatic, often downtuned riffs with a variety of guitar techniques - tremolo picking, palm-muting, sweep picking, pinch harmonics - and frequent tempo and time signature shifts. Thrash can be chromatic as well, but doesn't have the variety in technique (other than in the guitar solos) or the frequent tempo/time signature shifts. The growled vocals often coincide with death metal, but are never what distinguishes it from other genres.

Basically this

I've been thinking more about this throughout the day, and another important thing worth mentioning is that although thrash and death metal are both chromatic, in death metal, the riffs stray from the tonal center much more often.

In thrash it's common to see a riff pattern like (on the E string): 0-0-0-0-0-0-1-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-3-3... etc. If you have perfect pitch or know the tuning, it's relatively easy to tell what key a song is in. This stream of notes at the tonic is very obvious when watching a guitarist play a thrash song; see this cover of "Angel of Death" for an obvious example and look at how many open-string notes there are. If you know that Reign in Blood is in E-flat tuning, it's trivial to discern that the first riff of "Angel of Death" is in the key of E-flat because of how it sounds and plays.

In death metal the tonic is not reinforced nearly as much. Look at this guitar cover of "Graves of the Fathers" by Cryptopsy and listen to the first riff while watching the fretting. I won't bother writing out the tabs, but it's in the key of D, which is not immediately obvious because the riff is comprised of seemingly random eighth notes all across the chromatic scale. You don't have a stream of notes at the tonic in every measure like you often see in thrash.

Is there a death metal band with clean vocals or total absence of deep/harsh vocals?

Satan's Host is the go-to example:


EDIT: Desultor too.

Even if you disagree that these bands are 100% death metal, certainly you would not say that Altars of Madness is less purely death metal merely because its vocals are high-pitched and raspy rather than deep growls. That was my main point.

No or isn’t Death Metal

So growling is the characteristic of Death Metal

At the very least growling/cookie monster/hardcore/not singing/ whatever you call it makes something extreme.

Maybe this has been done, but it would be interesting to hear an album with musically pure death metal arrangements but nothing but singing the whole way through.

MutantClannfear cited two examples of basically exactly this though? Also a major flaw of the "growls = death metal" argument is instrumental music that clearly has dm arrangements.

Well shit!

Another example is classic Opeth, who had the growls but never really touched death metal, musically. (Some of "My Arms" may have almost skirted the boundraries of death metal, but only barely.). Growls alone do NOT result in death metal.

Also The Chasm have like 15 instrumental death metal songs. Grindcore isn't death metal and has growls, Funeral doom and drone aren't death metal and have growls, there's a heap of BM bands with growlier vocals these days. There's clearly a musical component at play rather than only the vocal style.

exceptions that prove the rule.

An argument could probably be made that Scream Bloody Gore would be a thrash album without the growls. Not the entire genre.

There are definite musical elements that could be isolated by someone with a lot of music theory knowledge (whoever mentioned chromatic scales is pretty accurate) and the lyrical element shouldn't be ignored, stuff that belongs in a horror novel or movie.

I'd cite the self-titled Diabolique EP as an interesting example here. These guys were all seasoned death metal musicians (some recognisable names), and their music certainly sounds like death metal to me (despite the lack of growls).



Compare and contrast this with the Ten Masked Men cover of "Staying Alive" (with growled vocals and distortion).


One of these examples has the essence of death metal in its DNA, the other does not.

Obituary and Autopsy seem to have shaken off the rest of the thrash elements in their first albums. Low tuned guitars, deep growling vocals, aprupt tempo and rhythm changes, double kicks and blast beats, gore/death styled lyrics.

Statement that proves a dickhead.

A) Ultraboris did.

b) I agree with this and its really douchey.

Multiple of the following aspects of the music in and of itself or in comparison to other genres. All of it has some wiggle room, but not infinite, see below. You can also put "relatively" just about any place it currently isn't.

Low pitched harsh vocals, generally with a relatively "open" sound, where the singer has their throat more relaxed, often "overbreathed" using the air more rapidly than normal for that particular pitch and volume. Vowel sounds, though often reduced are emphasized, and consonant sounds de-emphasized. (As opposed to black metal vocals, which, in addition to being higher pitched, the throat is generally held tighter, the air "underbreathed" giving a "strangled" type sound, and consonant sounds more preserved.)

Audible bass. The bass is often given a more prominent role as well, and will often have its own riffs or take a temporarily melodic function. Bass tone will often have "scooped mids" but will nearly always have a bass response/low pass equal or greater than the high pass. Bass will have a tone equally "dirty" to the guitars, instead of the clearer tone common in thrash.

Tone and Distortion. Distortion generally has a thicker sound, with a lower boost, what I call a "rat" distortion after the Rat pedal. Distortion level is high, but clipping and blend are both less . . . severe . . .than in black metal. While classic-style fuzz is not often used, it gets close to that level.

Chromatism (did I actually spell that right on the first try?) and scales. Death metal commonly has a significantly high degree of chromaticism than other forms of metal, at least other forms accepted here. (Nu-metal, and related 'core genres often have an even higher level of chromaticism. (Hmm, does that mean Arnold Schoenberg is trendy and accessible? Can I get an Alfred Schnittke t-shirt at Hot Topic? I spelled Schnittke for that wisecrack.) Additionally, thrash tends to reduce it's chromaticism when working with the Phrygian mode, as opposed to natural minor, while death metal tends to keep the same amount of chromaticism. Death metal is more likely to dip into the Locrian (black metal does as well). Dorian, while common in some forms of metal is much rarer in death metal. Overall, the dissonance and chromaticism in death metal are harsher than in most other forms of metal. (Black metal is either tied or a close send depending on subgenre)

Solos: First of all a note, I am not saying that death metal solos are "bad" in any way. I am going to say that death metal tends to shy away from virtuoso/cadenza solos. I actually prefer, simpler, noisier, "bluesier" solos in many ways. I think that they can serve the song better while virtuoso solos often (IMHO) distract from the emotional intensity of a song. (Unless you're Savatage, and I will be slightly bitter about that eternally.) Death metal tends to shy away from virtuoso solos, and while not discarding them entirely tend towards more sound-based solos. Solos in other subgenres, including thrash, tend to reduce dissonance in the solos, death metal (and some other genres) do not. Also thrash and other genres of metal towards that end will more often use the minor pentatonic of the scale they are in, including in Phyrgian. Death metal is more likely to continuing using the same scale (which they are generally less welded to anyway) and to remain in Phyrgian if the rest of the song is.

I'll think of more as soon as I post this.

Chromaticism is not the same as Schoenberg's 12-tone technique - the latter uses each of the 12 chromatic tones in equal proportions, while most death metal songs will simply use chromatic elements without regard for tonal balance.

Though, if you happen to find a death metal song which does use 12-tone technique I'd be happy to hear it.

My guess is that it would be hard to even find death metal which strictly adheres to chromaticism as a style throughout an entire song - there are likely to be diatonic elements found even if only occasionally. Again, happy to be proven wrong here!

If I had to pinpoint a "style" generally used in death metal, I'd probably express it broadly as a preference for dissonance or atonality.

I mean this isn't new.

Death metal and melodeath to me needs to be centered around this tremolo style riffing. The same way you know what the thrash chug is.




Black metal has their own kind of tremolo. main riffing and if you've listen to enough of both dm and bm you can usually just tell by ear (the atmospheres are different too)