Heavy Metal Bands

"Every tour, I would come home sick. Twice, I came home with double-pneumonia, and then I had to go back to work. Eventually, yeah, it just adds up. [If] I'm gonna get sick every tour with pneumonia and still have to go to work..? Yeah -- no, no -- I can't anymore. Flo was actually the one who brought it up -- we were in a pub together. [...] He looks at me and sees that I'm not well, [and said,] "You can't do this anymore. Why don't you bail out while you still have some semblence of health?""

"If you're not familiar with this kind of music you might be blown back by the apocalyptic screech of frontman Jacob Bannon's vocals. It's clear with each gritty blast that the guy is screaming out his lungs for you. Naturally, you can't follow a single word but the vox bleed into the furious guitars and it's all acidic corrosion."

"From the first dissonant notes of “The Saddest Day,” it was undeniable that a new extreme formula had been discovered, blending hardcore and extreme metal together with an ingenious, progressive, chaotic twist. “The Saddest Day” is what a hungry band sounds like — saying “fuck it” to the status quo of their scene and freely experimenting with every dynamic they could conjure up."

"Despite their tendon-tearing, odd-time calisthenics, tech-metallurgists Converge are just a bunch of dudes with guitars. Oh, but they're not. They're good at deceiving us: What hits the tongue like straight blitzkrieg metal leaves a peculiar aftertaste."

"Sometimes in the modern day, it can be easy to forget how important Cryptopsy were to death metal. But in ’96, None So Vile was a mind-blowing distillation of the genre’s many elements. [...] Simply put, it was a no-holds-barred death metal album that could be taken wholly seriously due to the talent and inspiration put into it, in no small part due to the vocals and lyrics of frontman Lord Worm."

"Converge are known as the pioneers of the genre — the widely popular metal style heard throughout modern metal that amalgamates elements of hardcore and metal. [...] While the band’s influence and contributions to heavy and extreme music are greater than their popularity, Converge has one of the most loyal cult followings in the hardcore and metal communities."

"No love! No hope!"

"Converge are a world unto themselves. They're one of the first names anyone mentions while trying to sum up "metalcore" in a few words. They're one of the most influential heavy bands of the last two decades. The Jane Doe cover art has created one of the most iconic T-shirts in underground rock music. And crucially, Converge as an entity is bigger than the sum of its parts."

"Napalm Death not only helped establish the grindcore sub-genre, but they’re one of the most influential and iconic band’s in extreme music. Their 1987 debut ' is still hailed as one of the most important metal albums for having an unprecedented and frantically chaotic approach to metal songwriting, while embracing song structures often heard in hardcore and punk music."

"I think we’ve gone as far as we can with the ‘gods of speed’ thing. We’re starting to get into slower stuff, going for longer songs, as opposed to the blast aspect. Also, the noisy, industrial stuff is coming more to the forefront. [...] We’re getting into real painful noise; I just want to annoy people at the moment."

"That's where they die That's where they suicide"

"As pioneers and groundbreakers of metalcore, Converge maintained consistent status as one of the most original and innovative bands to emerge from the punk underground."

"For budding death metal fans, there are a series of vocal thresholds to cross before truly becoming a fan of the genre. One might start with the basic shout of Death’s Chuck Schuldiner, graduate into the rasp of Carcass’s Jeff Walker, and eventually enjoy the standard “cookie monster” approach most associated with death metal. But I don’t think you can honestly appreciate death metal until you’ve learned to love Lord Worm. There have been very few frontman in detah metal history who have sounded quite as inhuman. Many harsh vocalists try to sound demonic, but Lord Worm is the only man (besides maybe Demilich’s Antti Boman) who really sounds like he’s from a different world than ours. His array of growls, shrieks, grunts, and howls is unmatched, and he is never intelligible. Those grotesque, Baudelaire-like lyrics of his go to waste if you don’t read along (not that they’re much easier to understand with the words right in front of you. He blatantly skips syllables throughout [None So Vile])."

"Fusing sordid grindcore crunch with anatomically correct gore lyrics, Carcass has some of the nastiest song titles in rock history: “Cadaveric Incubator of Endoparasites,” “Sarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency,” and “Excoriating Abdominal Emanation,” to name a few."

"Carcass are one of extreme metal’s lynchpins."

"is easily one of the least appealing topics on the planet, so obviously Carcass have a song about it."

"Plugged into the socket Leads attached to twisting skin Ignite the squirming foetus To dissolve it from within"

"As salubrious pet food Human midden is consumed Not one to mince my words But now I love to see those siblings churned In tins they are reared"

"Pick at the scab – septic blood starts to weep Rip at my face – ruptured growths start to seep Blackhead and boils, pustular cysts Chapped comedones, perspiring zits Pierce the blade – infected tissue starts to bleed Diseased and plagued – tumours chew and feed [...] The juice is squeezed Sebum bleeds Lick the pox Weals and warts..."

"Along with their fellow U.K. peers , Carcass played a pivotal role in expanding the genre in the early ‘90s but with a notably more melodic presence. The band intertwined groovy riffs with the sheer aggression of and , which helped to lay the foundations for in the mid ‘90s."

"Liquidized esophagus mixes with bloodied excretion As you pathetically gasp for breath The stench of hot feces scorch your nose As you violently vomit to death."

"Sadistically sodomizing with my instruments of grime Force-feeding it down your throat if I find the time Vaseline and talc soothe the gored ano-obliteration Sardonically I gloat on your rectal dislocation"

"Your mouth is a sea of cartilage, rabid saliva bleeds Swallowing shredded tongue and pulverized, crunching teeth Respirating a bolus of rusty razor blades Asphyxiating bloody garotte, tearing your jugular vein."

"Juices digested from each pus-swollen pore Insatiable hunger as I feed on the gore Nothing gives me greater pleasure than a bowl full of chyme Maggot infested kidneys Are what I choose every time."

"["Vomited Anal Tract"] is all about someone who turns themselves inside out while they vomit. So, they end up with their rectum coming out of their mouth! Of course, it’s medically impossible – but it’s just our toilet humour."

"The innards decompose, putrefy to jelly The dermis ruptures with sialagogic cruor Green putrefied offal explodes with the discharge Bubbling viscera is splattered all over the floor."

"The recumbent are my prey — under my genital blade Your precordium I brutally plunder — whilst you’re put under Exsanguinating — you’re totally parched Exenterating — removing body parts Wholly abraded – surgically maimed Decortication — medically slain."

"Melodeath may have been defined by the Swedes, but it was Carcass that made its definitive statement."

"Not many people will argue against the case that Emperor are the greatest black metal band of all time, or that they raised the genre into new realms of art. In The Nightside Eclipse amplified black metal’s invocation of otherness as it imprinted the inhuman on an immeasurably vast and majestic canvas. [...] Emperor tore open new spaces that drew in innumerable voyagers in their wake."

"The band’s constant swing between noisy traditional racket and dissonant doom moved away from metal's beats-per-minute arms race and reveled in the bodily weirdness that was at the heart of the genre's growth throughout the ’90s."

"Death metal songs about death are more or less mandatory, but Autopsy attacked the topic with real piss and vinegar. ' introduced the world to a band that took gore seriously."

"Death metal has changed quite a bit since the birth of the genre. Every aspect of sonic extremity that could be conceived has been pushed, be that the tempo, production, level of consonance (what’s usually called “harmony”), chromaticism, vocals, and everything in between. Formed in 1987 in California, Autopsy have seen all of that evolution from the very start and always chose during their formative years to be a part of the group pushing boundaries, ignoring at all times what might prove to be more marketable or trendy to pursue their own form of sonic barbarism and their own always-disgusting horror aesthetic."

""Charred Remains," ' (1988) as quoted by"

""Battery Acid Enema," ' as quoted by"

"I don’t consider our lyrics to be at all gruesome. To me, they’re more absurd and funny than nasty. You read the lyrics and they’re comical. We’re all fans of ‘70s horror movies like The Vault Of Horror and The Crypt Of Horror. They were morality tales, but also had a rich vein of gallows humour running through them. And we were also influenced by the Pan Book Of Horror Stories book series – that’s the way I see our songs. [...] We’ve never gotten any negativity from those in the medical profession for our lyrics or artwork. I’ve met a lot of nurses, doctors and people from the medical world, and they are always positive about what we do."

"When we stared the band in early ’87, there were a lot of band with so-called gore lyrics, but they were just writing about horror films and stuff like that. To us, that was ineffective, it didn’t have any impact on the listener. We wanted to introduce something that was a little more realistic. I mean, obviously, it’s got a fantasy element too, because some of these ideas are very overblown. But at the same time, the roots are in reality, and that’s why we use medical terminology. Also, I’d like to think that there’s an element of humor there. We’re not afraid to parody ourselves at times."

"Some people have missed the point, sexualizing the violence or being gross for the sake of it [..] Whatever we were doing with Carcass, there was definitely some thought behind it. [...] But it’s easy to be shocking, isn’t it? It’s easy to say horrible things. I’d like to say we did it with a sense of humor."

"I always thought that the name of the band derived from the death of [Chuck's brother Frank]. And while the word had such painful memories, I did not object."

"By the late ’80s/early ’90s the primitive, zombie, blood and gore obsessed death metal had evolved to a more progressive style with lyrics delving into the dark side of human nature and suffering. Every one of Death’s albums has a distinct sound, and there were many line up changes over the years. Death’s legacy is heard in many extreme metal bands, and the impact his guitar playing had on the scene and music cannot be overstated. Death is a band that influenced all extreme metal genres, from thrash, and black metal to grind core and prog/djent."

"Throughout their career, Death proved that there’s more to extreme music than just provocative, gruesome lyrics and blistering fast instrumentals. Lead songwriter Chuck Schuldiner was simply a master of metal songwriting both from an instrumental and lyrical standpoint. [...] The vast majority of Death’s discography is timeless and exudes a prowess of extreme metal songwriting unlike any other band."

""Flesh and the Power it Holds" was one of the first tracks I discovered of Death and actually the first song I was able to play on guitar. Pretty good choice, great songwriting and fantastic riffs that itches under your skin. While the whole last album is a classic, the earlier material such as Human got me and since the first listen I have been a fan. "Flesh and the Power it Holds" is a pretty long song, but it never gets boring; it keeps you listening from the first to the last note. Still one of my all time favorites."

"While most death metal bands focused on being fast and angry, Obituary took their sweet time crafting eerie, humidity-drenched riffs that kept sweaty heads banging."

"Tampa’s own Obituary managed to stand out among the early bands by way of a very simple, but effective songwriting strategy. Namely, while most of their contemporaries were still indebted to thrash and raging away at blazing speeds, Obituary embraced the slower tempos typical of doom metal, and fused it all together behind some of the era’s heaviest guitar tones. 1990’s gore-infested sophomore album, ‘Cause of Death,’ arguably provides the ultimate expression of this template, which also saw vocalist John Tardy vomiting senseless gurgles into his microphone, as often as not, instead of bothering to write lyrics few would comprehend anyway."

"Despite the fact that Tardy's widdlesome style contrasted with West's direct and brutal approach, Obituary's bludgeoning attack remained undiminished."

"Obituary [...] were less musically adept than or , so they downplayed whirlwind tempos for chugging, grimy half-time rhythms that sounded like they were oozing from a sewage treatment plant."

"I have been dealing with the potential for brutalization in society for decades. In this context, I came across the band around 25 years ago because, as a teacher, I saw pupils wearing T-shirts depicting babies on grappling hooks. They were freely available on the market at the time. I've been educating people ever since. Cannibal Corpse is not the only band, but I see it as symptomatic of how far things can go when state institutions turn a blind eye."

"It wasn't unusual for mainstream metal and hard rock bands to use keyboards, but it was hardly typical in the underground world of death metal, thrash, and grindcore. Nocturnus, of course, didn't want to be typical, which is why The Key is among the more interesting death metal releases of 1990."

"Like Atheist, Cynic used death metal’s framework as a mere springboard to devise a wholly original, genre-straddling new sound, as alien as the creature gracing their sole full-length of the 1990’s now legendary ‘Focus.’ Vocalist/guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert had already showcased their skills on Death’s 1991 triumph ‘Human,’ and yet not even that prepared the metal world for this startling mutation, built on unorthodox riff/drum combinations, jazz-like improvisations, and vocal styles that ranged from a death growls, to female and robotic vocals, all intoning esoteric lyrics. Without any hyperbole, the end results were so brilliant that it simply couldn’t last, and Cynic soon disappeared for over a decade."

"Death is not a limited band where I want the same, simple beat through everything. I’m inspired by a lot of bands that aren’t death metal. I’ve got influences that come from different types of music, different types of metal. To say being technical isn’t allowed in this type of band, I just think that’s a narrow-minded statement. It’s coming from someone who doesn’t understand my direction. They don’t have to like it. But if you really wanna get into the reasoning of it, Death isn’t a band that I want to limit."

"If death metal first came to life during the mid- to late '80s courtesy of bands like Florida's Death [...] Obituary, brought it to fruition in 1989 with Slowly We Rot. [...] These innovations don't seem so revolutionary now, given the innumerable death metal bands that arose during the '90s and beyond [...] But in 1989, Obituary were blazing a new trail, along with other Florida peers like Morbid Angel and, a bit later, Deicide, , and ."