Sadistic Metal Reviews: End of Hippies and White Picket Fences Edition

Death metal thrived from 1985 to 1994. The early material of the proto-underground nature — Sodom, Master, Possessed, Bathory, Hellhammer, Slayer — solidified its metal/hardcore roots into something much more expressive by 1985, and then it was simply a matter of creating the classics.

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Interview with Progressive Death Metal Band Sadist (2025)

In the early days of death metal, when it was a hybrid of heavy metal and hardcore punk, it was widely viewed as technically incompetent especially by the jazz, rock, blues, and emo punk audience that was dominating record stores at the time. A few death metal bands set out to prove them all wrong, including Sadist, who kindly agreed to an interview for our readers, many of whom are Sadist fans.

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How Heavy Metal Died of Success

Some civilizations have public viewings of the dead; some bury them as soon as possible under cover of night. Some have wakes, others solemn commemorations. Human death rituals take many forms but they all serve to fix a discontinuity, to knit a past that cannot continue with an unknown future.

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