Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs fast tempos, heavily distorted guitars, deep growling vocals, morbid lyrics, blast beat drumming, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes.

Building off the speed and complexity of thrash metal, death metal emerged during the mid 1980s. It was mainly inspired by thrash acts like Slayer, Kreator and Celtic Frost. Along with the band Death and its frontman Chuck Shuldiner (who is often hailed as "the father of death metal"), bands like Possessed, and Morbid Angel are often considered pioneers of the genre. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, death metal gained more media attention as popular record labels like Earache Records and Roadrunner Records began to sign death metal bands at a rapid rate.Since then, death metal has diversified, spawning a rich variety of subgenres.

Death metal has been met with considerable hostility from mainstream culture, mainly because of the socially unattractive themes, imagery and stage personae surrounding many bands. It is typically seen as an underground form of music, in part because it does not appeal to mainstream tastes due to its aggressive nature and because the musicians often choose to remain obscure.

Characteristics

Instrumentation

The setup most frequently used in death metal is two electric guitars, a bass guitar, a vocalist and a drum kit almost universally using two bass drums or a double bass drum pedal. Although this is the standard setup, bands have been known to incorporate other instruments such as electronic keyboards.

The genre is often identified by fast, highly distorted and downtuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking. The percussion is usually fast and dynamic; blast beats, double bass and exceedingly fast drum patterns are frequently used to add to the ferocity of the genre.

Death metal is known for its abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes, as well as extremely fast and complex guitar and drumwork. Death metal may include chromatic chord progressions and a varied song structure, rarely employing the standard verse-chorus arrangement. These compositions tend to emphasize an ongoing development of themes and motifs.

Vocals and lyrics

Death metal vocals are often guttural roars, grunts, snarls, and low gurgles colloquially called death grunts or death growls. This vocal style is sometimes referred to in tongue-in-cheek as Cookie Monster vocals because of the similarity with the popular Sesame Street character of the same name.

Death metal's lyrical themes typically invoke Z-grade slasher and splatter movie violence, but may also extend to contain themes of Satanism, criticism of religion, Occultism, mysticism, and/or social commentary. Although violence may be explored in various other genres as well, death metal elaborates on the details of extreme acts, including mutilation, dissection, torture, rape and necrophilia. Sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris (author of Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge) commented that this may be attributed to a "fascination" with the human body that all people share to some degree, a "primal desire", and that although the genre often glamorizes violence and obscurities, there is equally as much fear and disgust amid the exploration. Heavy metal author Gavin Baddeley also stated that there does seem to be a connection between "how acquainted one is with their own mortality" and "how much they crave images of death and violence" via the media. Additionally, contributing artists to the genre often defend death metal as little more than an extreme form of art and entertainment, similar to horror films in the motion picture industry. Needless to say, this has brought such musicians under fire from activists internationally, who claim that fact is often lost on a large number of adolescents, who are left with the glamorization of such violence without social context or awareness of why such imagery is stimulating.

According to Alex Webster, bassist of Cannibal Corpse, "The gory lyrics are probably not, as much as people say, [what's keeping us] from being mainstream. Like, 'Death metal would never go into the mainstream because the lyrics are too gory'? I think it's really the music, because violent entertainment is totally mainstream."

Origin of the term

There are several theories how the term "death metal" originated. One theory is that the name originates from an early pioneer of the genre, Death. A Florida journalist explained to his readers that Death play their own kind of metal: "Death's Metal". Others contest that Death is not the origin, but that the harsh vocals and morbid lyrical content generally inspired the genre. Another possible origin is a fanzine called "Death Metal", started by Thomas Fischer and Martin Ain of the band Hellhammer (later Celtic Frost). The name was later given to the 1984 compilation Death Metal released by Hellhammer's label Noise Records. The term might also have originated from other recordings. Possessed's 1984 demo is called Death Metal, and a song with the same name is featured on their 1985 debut album Seven Churches. A demo released by Death in 1983 is called Death by Metal.