1990: "Defensive Personalities", Death

Back from a long hiatus, the holidays have wrung all the wholesome, life affirming essence out of me. What better way to get back into the swing of things, then, than with a series of entries on the burgeoning death metal movement at the turn of the 90s?

Probably seems kind of lame/obvious starting off with the actual band Death, but unsurprisingly the Chuck Schuldiner-led ensemble was one of the seminal acts in creating the death metal template as an extreme spin off of thrash. The genre itself was inadvertently christened in 1985 by Bay Area band Possessed, on a song by the same name off of their Seven Churches album, but at the time Possessed were seen less as a pioneering new influence and more of a traditional, sloppy thrash group a la contemporary Celtic Frost and early Venom. Like many pioneers, Possessed would have to wait until their field was a little more crowded before fans retroactively began to realize that they were on to something new, instead of just peddling a particularly virulent strain of thrash.

Death was the band that served notice that a new form of metal was here to stay. 1987's Scream Bloody Gore set the bar immediately for those who wished to consider themselves on the cutting edge of extremity, the stomach churning lyrics, guttural vocals and darker, more sinister riffs establishing a prototype for all death metal bands to come (a fact not lost on burgeoning thrash bands in Florida, which would become geographically to death metal as the Bay Area was to thrash).

By 1990, however, Schuldiner was on album number three, and had already lightened up the pace somewhat in favor of more technical musicianship. Spiritual Healing largely retreated back toward thrash, save for the guttural vocals - Schuldiner could sing no other way - and wasn't particularly well received at the time. In hindsight, it's an essential stepping stone in the evolution that would lead to the band's late period masterpieces Symbolic and The Sound of Perserverance. Schuldiner himself would eventually downplay his role in the rise of death metal, proclaiming "I don’t think I should take credit for this death metal stuff. I’m just a guy from a band, and I think Death is a metal band".

Nonetheless, though he would never again write an album with the visceral brutality of Scream Bloody Gore, Schuldiner retained sufficient respect and a large enough fanbase that Spiritual Healing and - in particular - later efforts would make him an influential figure in the technical death metal movement, which would peak in popularity in the mid-to-late 90s.