FROM THE UNDERGROUND, TO THE CHARTS AND BACK:
The History of Death Metal

At the end of the 80's the heavy metal scene went through a revolution once and for all. The classic dinosaurs like Maiden, Priest, Saxon, Def Leppard or Helloween had hit creative lows, the glam scene was dead and minimal inspiration was coming from thrash. On the other hand two new movements arose in the underground: on one side: the alternative Grunge-Rock-movement, on the other side: death metal.

Death metal had already been born in the early 80's. Who exactly invented this music style is hardly to be argued nowadays. Personally I stumbled across over the term death metal when Possessed put a song of the same name on their debut disc Seven Churches, which appeared in 1985. One year earlier however, in Florida, there were two bands, Massacre and Death, that had recorded their first demos. With their hellish, badly played yet cult noise, they secured the first recordings regarded as "death metal."

Bands out of Central Europe as of yet limped a bit behind; certain was that next to the British Earache label and the Dutch Roadrunner, mainly the German record labels were being supportive to death metal and helped build it. Century Media and Nuclear Blast put numerous acts on the metal map and with that became successful rivals of the up till then leading independent labels, which were ignoring this scene completely. Pretty quickly in the heart of Europe also developed a powerful band scene. Pestilence, Morgoth, Gorefest, Pungent Stench, Massacra and Asphyx are merely a few names to be named in this context.

Around the year 1993 the death metal experienced its most commercially viable period, but as often happens with good running trends, the market got flooded with releases of mediocre profiteers. Record labels that missed out on the opportunity in the beginning days were hoping to get their share; new labels thought they could enter into the death metal market. In short: the total saturation wasn't far away and ultimately in the mid 90's the wheat was seperated from the chaff. Many combos disappeared as quickly as they arised. Others changed their style, just a few established bigs like Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Hypocrisy, Bolt Thrower and Dismember stayed loyal to death metal without making compromises.

However it would not take long before death metal lived a renaissance again. While at the end of the 90's black metal took the lead, for example in Göteborg some sneaks rigged up the traditional death metal sound and developed a quite melodic variant. Next to At the Gates, bands like In Flames and Dark Tranquility can also be seen as pioneers. Meanwhile in the USA a scene arised with bands with a strong preference towards grind elements, but melted this together with simple and affective groove-parts, Dying Fetus and Mortician have to be named as advocates. And with Six Feet Under there appears to be a group that has a large commercial potential.


This healthy reduction without any doubt, was very good for the scene. In the beginning of the new millenium there's at least a well balanced mixture of older scene veterans who still can take care for new creative heights, and a very vital underground with fresh ideas taking care of an important role for the death metal once again.