Analysis of Death Metal Vocalists Part II


Continuing from part 1, here we analyze a different set of both good and bad vocalists who either achieved notoriety through a set of gimmicks or by being particularly gifted in a vocal style that has come to define Metal in the public eye. Unlike other genres of music, no universally acknowledged methodology has been created nor do formal teaching centers exist for growls. Yet in a time where such vocalizations have drawn more people than anyone could have expected it is necessary to seek those who do it well and add a layer of depth to the music, and to denigrate those who make a mockery or seek monetary gain from what was the most inaccessible form of singing conceived by man.
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/smr/ Sadistic Metal Reviews: Massacre of Death Metal’s Mainstream

Yesterday, we gave you the 10 most popular death metal bands of all time.  Now one by one they will face public execution as we absolutely massacre their most recent release.  No mercy will be shown- orders are to kill everything that moves.

Did you fucking soy metal nu males really think they would get off easy?  This is Death Metal Underground- the most savage music site on the internet!  Death to soy metal, death to sellouts, burn and die all falses!  Mayhem- war- sadism- brutalization!  No death metal band should have 1 million Facebook likes!  No death metal band should be on Facebook at all!  Pussies!  Behead the corpses, throw them into the streets- the Templar way!

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Overtorture – A Trail of Death (2015)

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Swedish Death Metal has stayed popular ever since the early days for a number of reasons. Mostly it is because it allows for the music to be catchy, “brutal” and flexible (although few bands exercise this power afforded by the fact that in theory this is death metal). The death metal fan will readily associate A Trail of Death with names such as Dismember, Carnage, Nihilist or Entombed and the release lives up to these expectations from the production tone up to the general approach.

A hint of pop-influenced modernity alla Entombed is revealed here in the preference for obvious verse-chorus-bridge structures without venturing even as far as Dismember did in Like an Ever Flowing Stream and appearing like an Entombed going on Arch Enemy in the way the riffs are used: they have the affectations of death metal but underlying them can be seen the Iron Maiden – like NWOBHM chord-by-chord advance.

By this token, a more precise comparison would come of pairing this band with later Dismember and their obsession with riff-oriented music rather than a progress/development-oriented one. The Entombed edge (or should we say lack of edge) in composition is in its conventionality pretending to be extreme (Back in the day, people thought Entombed was extreme or visionary in some way — apparently some of those who understand death metal only superficially still do so even today). In the process of creating this music and never venturing outside or around of what their inspirations did at any level, Overtorture sound like one more of the herd. Nothing more, nothing less.

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