I'm not as knowledgeable with Death Metal as with Extreme Doom or Black Metal, but I wanted to start a conversation about it nonetheless. Any fans in here?
Definition:
Technical death metal (also referred to as tech-death) is a musical subgenre of death metal that began and developed in the early- to mid-1990s, with particular focus on challenging, demanding instrumental skill and complex songwriting.
Technical experimentation in death metal began in the late 1980s and early 1990s by four bands that are often grouped together as "technical death metal's Big Four" – Death, Pestilence, Atheist, and Cynic – as well as Nocturnus; all but Pestilence being part of the Florida death metal scene.
Some of the distinct features of this genre include dynamic song structures, complex and atypical rhythmic structures, abundant use of diminished chords and arpeggios, frequent employment of odd time chord progressions, and constant use of string skipping on the guitars. Bass lines are usually complex, and the drums are extremely fast-paced with abundant use of blast beats and other extreme drumming techniques. The technical death metal genre has also been influenced by mostly jazz fusion, as well as thrash metal and progressive/technical-inspired heavy metal bands like Death, Megadeth, Slayer, Voivod, Kreator, Dark Angel, Coroner, Sadus, and Watchtower, the latter of whose second album Control and Resistance (1989) is often considered to be one of the sources of inspiration for the genre.
This marvel just came out today, inspired me to start this conversation:
"Through mercurial waves beneath the moon's mournful glow, a trinity of incarnate beings that embody Mithridatum have conjured forth the entity known as Harrowing, an auditory pilgrimage traversing a gloomscape leaden with dissonance, despondency, isolation, entropy... into the abyss.
The name Mithridatum refers to the practice of achieving immunity against poisoning through self-administered, sub-lethal doses. The allegory is inescapable in its illustration of the unrelenting immiseration all incarnate beings must endure, willing or unwilling."
Album: Mithridatum (US) - Harrowing (2023). Released by WIllowtip Records in the US.
Definition:
Technical death metal (also referred to as tech-death) is a musical subgenre of death metal that began and developed in the early- to mid-1990s, with particular focus on challenging, demanding instrumental skill and complex songwriting.
Technical experimentation in death metal began in the late 1980s and early 1990s by four bands that are often grouped together as "technical death metal's Big Four" – Death, Pestilence, Atheist, and Cynic – as well as Nocturnus; all but Pestilence being part of the Florida death metal scene.
Some of the distinct features of this genre include dynamic song structures, complex and atypical rhythmic structures, abundant use of diminished chords and arpeggios, frequent employment of odd time chord progressions, and constant use of string skipping on the guitars. Bass lines are usually complex, and the drums are extremely fast-paced with abundant use of blast beats and other extreme drumming techniques. The technical death metal genre has also been influenced by mostly jazz fusion, as well as thrash metal and progressive/technical-inspired heavy metal bands like Death, Megadeth, Slayer, Voivod, Kreator, Dark Angel, Coroner, Sadus, and Watchtower, the latter of whose second album Control and Resistance (1989) is often considered to be one of the sources of inspiration for the genre.
This marvel just came out today, inspired me to start this conversation:
"Through mercurial waves beneath the moon's mournful glow, a trinity of incarnate beings that embody Mithridatum have conjured forth the entity known as Harrowing, an auditory pilgrimage traversing a gloomscape leaden with dissonance, despondency, isolation, entropy... into the abyss.
The name Mithridatum refers to the practice of achieving immunity against poisoning through self-administered, sub-lethal doses. The allegory is inescapable in its illustration of the unrelenting immiseration all incarnate beings must endure, willing or unwilling."
Album: Mithridatum (US) - Harrowing (2023). Released by WIllowtip Records in the US.
