In the late 70s and early 80s, hard rock and early heavy metal had already entered the pantheon of rock’n’roll but were beginning to decline… The New Wave of British Heavy Metal spearheaded by legendary bands such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest made sure of its continuation. In spite of its musical and visual radicalisation, metal remained popular. Unsurprisingly, some musicians began to break away from the movement in search of something more brutal. Goodbye lycra trousers, over-the-top shows and sexy melodies. The thrashers Metallica and Slayer donned their jeans and trainers and adopted dishevelled tempos, grubby saturation and punk-like shouty vocals. Without burying the genre, Metallica dealt a blow to the movement with the release of The Black Album, which re-embraced the rock ballad and cooler tempos. It was an immense commercial success that cemented the future of the group that we know today yet it was not long before a reaction emerged from the underground. This reaction held the cuddly name of death metal…
Looking back at the musical origins of death metal, two groups crucial to the conception of the genre were likely on the minds of youngsters bottle-fed on hardcore and thrash metal: Napalm Death and Possessed. The former was a classic English hardcore group until the arrival of their drummer Mick Harris who, in addition to inventing the term “grindcore”, introduced blast beat into extreme music (remember that the first blast beats originated from jazz, notably with the drummer Sunny Murray!). With Harris as their drummer, the group’s compositions became faster and playing more rapid and technical. The latter group is a band from San Francisco Bay, musically closer to thrash metal. Nevertheless, the group held certain apt innovations that set them apart: Jeff Becerra’s snarling vocals that paved the way for the famous growl and their complex compositions and riff organisation with changes in tempo and breaks. They soon caught on and their music was quickly moving through underground scenes by means of tape-trading. These two bands would go on to influence a great number of musicians who were inspired to create what would be known as death metal.
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