Best death metal album

dopesmoker · Post by **dopesmoker** » Tue August 6th, 2013, 5:32 pm

enormous ass ville

ben · Post by **ben** » Tue August 6th, 2013, 11:41 pm

hmmm, probably Leprosy, or Spiritual Healing

stewvee · Post by **stewvee** » Wed August 7th, 2013, 8:59 am

INFESTER, To the depths... or IMPETIGO, Ultimo Mondo

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Wed August 7th, 2013, 9:44 am

stewvee wrote:IMPETIGO, Ultimo Mondo

This is a true contender, in fact I think I'll listen to it now!

Will you be gracing us with your presence at 529 this evening Stew?

stewvee · Post by **stewvee** » Wed August 7th, 2013, 3:04 pm

Ryan wrote:
stewvee wrote:IMPETIGO, Ultimo Mondo
This is a true contender, in fact I think I'll listen to it now!

Will you be gracing us with your presence at 529 this evening Stew?

not unless i can bring along my three yr old.

Knucklehead · Post by **Knucklehead** » Wed August 7th, 2013, 5:57 pm

stewvee wrote:
Ryan wrote:
stewvee wrote:IMPETIGO, Ultimo Mondo
This is a true contender, in fact I think I'll listen to it now!

Will you be gracing us with your presence at 529 this evening Stew?
not unless i can bring along my three yr old.

He can hang out with my 4- and 6-year old.

easnoddy · Post by **easnoddy** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 1:56 pm

Hmm, wow, as an old-school death fan this is crazy hard. It really kinda depends on where/what album you came into a band on.

When I was young I probably would have said Deicide "Deicide" because its so damn in-your-face anti-Christian and I played it to death (still one of my top 5 hate-metal albums). I heard "Blessed" before "Altars" and I strongly prefer the deep vocals to the raspy ones and I'd say "Covenant" is my fave MA album. Death "Leprosy" is way up there as the first death metal album I heard and has my 2 favorite Death songs but on the whole "Human" was IMO a better album. "Cause of Death" cannot be downplayed. Realm of Chaos was the first BT album I heard and loved it but "For Victory" is my fave. "Retribution" is a huge classic MC album. Morgoth's "Cursed" and Unleashed's "Where No Life Dwells" really shaped the first half of my junior year of HS. Also WAY up there is "Effigy of the Forgotten" as it exposed me to technical death metal and its so FUCKING brutal but I didn't appreciate it for a while.

But...and I'm not really a fan of these guys for the past 15 years now as I just cannot get into their last 10 albums. The one album that REALLY desensitized me to gore at a young age and shocked the fuck out of me ...and I played the tape down to where it no longer sounded good. It took me a while to get used to is as it felt so UN-thrash, it was death.

So, I'll have to say TO ME its the best pure death metal album...

Butchered At Birth

EDIT: That's my treatise and I'm stickin to it.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 3:57 pm

If I was listing second place albums then Tomb of the Mutilated would def be mentioned as would Eaten Back to Life and really Butchered at Birth would deserve to be there as well... that's one of, if not THE, greatest trio of death metal albums ever. Any sort of order after Altars is difficult for me because I would have to dual list a lot of bands and decide where to draw the line between death metal and grindcore.

In Battle... is my favorite BT album but Realm of Chaos is the decidedly more "death metal" of their top tier output. Repulsion is one of my all time favorite bands but are hard to really compare to stuff like Once Upon the Cross or Leprosy or Human or Symbolic or any of Suffocation's early output.

To throw in something atypical I would say the following albums are in my top 5 or 10 that aren't your typical death metal "standards."

Splatterhouse - The House that Dead Built
The best Carcass clone. Period. I love Exhumed and Impaled but Splatterhouse smokes them both.

Frightmare - Midnight Murder Mania and Bringing Back the Bloodshed
RIFFS ON RIFFS ON RIFFS ON RIFFS. The opening riff to Terry Hawkins Arise is too fucking nasty and that's only the beginning.

Battlemaster - Warthirsting and Winterbound
I'm not a TECH dude by any sense of the imagination but this album balances technicality with fantastic riffs, vocals, drumming, and has the overall atmosphere and songwriting to back up a wide range of tempos and styles and make it all sound totally genuine and simultaneously super fun which I find to be exceptionally rare.

MaleficSounds · Post by **MaleficSounds** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 4:35 pm

Morbid Angel - Gateways to annihilation

ksarikhani · Post by **ksarikhani** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 5:14 pm

For me, it's difficult to pin down a "best" album. I remember buying a Venom record years ago and was totally blown away; from that point, I was on a quest for the heaviest material I could find. I was (and still am) a huge fan of bands like Death, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Pestilence, Tiamat, Nocturnus, Unleashed, Carcass, Malevolent Creation, Cannibal Corpse, etc...certain releases anyway.

I think, for me, the one that holds the most memorable place is probably Obituary's "Cause of Death." Living in a small town in Alabama, I'd never heard of them before and thought the artwork was an indicator of something truly special. I'll never forget cranking the speakers and hearing those opening punishing chords. It scratched that itch for heaviness at the time and had some incredibly melodic playing from James Murphy to boot.

Honorable Mentions

Death: Spiritual Healing, Human, Individual Thought Patterns
Carcass: Necrotism
Morbid Angel: Altars Of Madness, Blessed Are The Sick
Unleashed: Shadows In The Deep
Tiamat: The Astral Sleep
Malevolent Creation: Retribution
Pestilence: Consuming Impulse, Testimony Of The Ancients
Nocturnus: The Key
Disincarnate: Dreams Of The Carrion Kind
Paradise Lost: Gothic

Thrashmania · Post by **Thrashmania** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 5:19 pm

My favorite Pestilence isn't even death metal!

ksarikhani · Post by **ksarikhani** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 6:18 pm

Did you mean Spheres? I love that record, but yeah...not really in the same vein.

Knucklehead · Post by **Knucklehead** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 6:52 pm

Interesting that there is hardly any mention of the Swedes here.

easnoddy · Post by **easnoddy** » Fri August 9th, 2013, 7:30 pm

I mentioned Unleashed and someone mentioned Entombed. Dan might cite them or Dismember.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Mon August 12th, 2013, 6:57 am

Knucklehead wrote:Interesting that there is hardly any mention of the Swedes here.

American death metal > Swedish death metal

AtlantaMetal

Best death metal album

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