Death Metal is


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Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes.
Building from the musical structure of thrash metal and early black metal, death metal emerged during the mid 1980s. Metal acts such as Slayer, Kreator, Celtic Frost, and Venom were very important influences to the crafting of the genre. Possessed and Death, along with bands such as Obituary, Carcass, Deicide 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 genre niche record labels like Combat, Earache and Roadrunner began to sign death metal bands at a rapid rate. Since then, death metal has diversified, spawning a variety of subgenres.

Instrumentation
         The setup most frequently used within the death metal genre is two guitarists, a bass player, a vocalist and a drummer often using "hyper double-bass blast beats".Although this is the standard setup, bands have been known to occasionally incorporate other instruments such as electronic keyboards.

The genre is often identified by fast, highly distorted and droptuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking. The percussion is usually aggressive, and powerful; exceedingly fast drum patterns frequently add to the complexity of the genre.
Death metal is known for its abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes. Death metal may include chromatic chord progressions and a varied song structure, often shunning the standard verse-chorus arrangement. In some circumstances, the style will incorporate melodic riffs and harmonies for effect. This incorporation of melody and harmonious playing was even further used in the creation of melodic death metal. These compositions tend to emphasize an ongoing development of themes and motifs. Death metal vocals are often guttural roars, grunts, snarls, and low growls colloquially known as death growls. Death growling is mistakenly thought to be a form of screaming using the lowest vocal register known as vocal fry, however vocal fry is actually a form of overtone screaming, and while growling can be performed this way by experienced vocalists who use the fry screaming technique, "true" death growling is in fact created by an altogether different technique The three major methods of harsh vocalization used in the genre are often mistaken for each other, encompassing vocal fry screaming, false chord screaming, and "true" death growls. Growling is sometimes also referred to as Cookie Monster vocals, tongue-in-cheek, due to the vocal similarity to the voice of the popular Sesame Street character of the same name. Although often criticized, death growls serve the aesthetic purpose of matching death metal's aggressive lyrical content. High-pitched screaming is occasionally utilized in death metal, being heard in songs by Death, Exhumed, Dying Fetus, Cannibal Corpse, Job for a Cowboy and Deicide.

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The lyrical themes of death metal may invoke slasher film-stylized violence but may also extend to topics like Satanism, anti-religion, occultism, nature, mysticism, philosophy, science fiction, and politics. Although violence may be explored in various other genres as well, death metal may elaborate on the details of extreme acts, including mutilation, dissection, torture, rape and necrophilia. Sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris commented this apparent glamorization of violence may be attributed to a "fascination" with the human body that all people share to some degree, a fascination which mixes desire and disgust. Heavy metal author Gavin Baddeley also stated 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. This explanation has brought such musicians under fire from activists internationally, who claim that this 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."

Subgenres
It should be noted that cited examples are not necessarily exclusive to one particular style. Many bands can easily be placed in two or more of the following categories, and a band's specific categorization is often a source of contention due to personal opinion and interpretation.

•    Melodic death metal: Scandinavian death metal could be considered the forerunner of "melodic death metal". Melodic death metal, sometimes referred to as "melodeath", is heavy metal music mixed with some death metal elements. Unlike most other death metal, melodeath usually features screams instead of growls, slower tempos, much more melody and even clean vocals are heard at rare times. Carcass is sometimes credited with releasing the first melodic death metal album with 1993's Heartwork, although Swedish bands In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, and At the Gates are usually mentioned as the main pioneers of the genre and of the Gothenburg metal sound.

•    Technical death metal: Technical death metal and "progressive death metal" are related terms that refer to bands distinguished by the complexity of their music. Common traits are dynamic song structures, uncommon time signatures, atypical rhythms and unusual harmonies and melodies. Bands described as technical death metal or progressive death metal usually fuse common death metal aesthetics with elements of progressive rock, jazz or classical music. While the term technical death metal is sometimes used to describe bands that focus on speed and extremity as well as complexity, the line between progressive and technical death metal is thin. "Tech death" and "prog death", for short, are terms commonly applied to such bands as Nile, Edge of Sanity, Opeth, Origin and Sadist. Cynic, Atheist, Pestilence and Gorguts are examples of bands noted for creating jazz-influenced death metal. Necrophagist and Spawn of Possession are known for a classical music-influenced death metal style. Death metal pioneers Death also refined their style in a more progressive direction in their final years. The Polish band Decapitated gained recognition as one of Europe's primary modern technical death metal acts.

•    Deathcore: With the rise in popularity of metalcore, some of its traits have been incorporated into death metal. Bands such as Suicide Silence, Salt the Wound and the early works from Job for a Cowboy combine metalcore with death metal influences. Characteristics of death metal, such as fast drumming (including blast beats), down-tuned guitars, tremolo picking and growled vocals, are combined with screamed vocals, melodic riffs and breakdowns. Decibel magazine stated that "One of Suffocation's trademarks, breakdowns, has spawned an entire metal subgenre: deathcore."[63]

•    Death/doom: Death/doom is a style that combines the slow tempos and melancholic atmosphere of doom metal with the deep growling vocals and double-kick drumming of death metal. The style emerged during the late 1980s and gained a certain amount of popularity during the 1990s. It was pioneered by bands such as Autopsy, Winter, Asphyx, Disembowelment, Paradise Lost, and My Dying Bride.

•    Goregrind and deathgrind: This style mixes the intensity, speed, and brevity of grindcore with the complexity of death metal. It differs from death metal in that guitar solos are often a rarity, shrieked vocals are more prominent as the main vocal style (though death growls are still utilized and some deathgrind bands make more use of the latter vocal style), and songs are generally shorter in length, usually between one and three minutes. The style differs from grindcore in the more technical approach and less evident hardcore punk influence and aesthetics. Some notable examples of deathgrind are Brujeria, Cattle Decapitation, Cephalic Carnage, Pig Destroyer, Circle of Dead Children and Rotten Sound.

•    Death 'n' roll: is a style that combines death metal's growled vocals and highly distorted detuned guitar riffs along with elements of classic rock and roll and 1970s hard rock and heavy metal. Notable examples include Entombed and Gorefest.

•    Blackened death metal: is a style that combines death metal and black metal. Examples of blackened death metal bands are Belphegor, Behemoth, Akercocke,  and Sacramentum.

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