Death metal is one of the extreme genres of heavy metal, along with black metal, thrash metal and... well, they'
re the only other ones worth noting.
Death metal has roots in 80's thrash metal, usually in bands like Slayer and Venom, however, many bands also have roots in Grindcore, such as Carcass, Napalm
death and Bolt Thrower. The genre is thankfully under-aprecciated, owing to it's fast, distorted guitars, rapid druming and blast beats, and low, "growling" vocals. It is actually good that the sub-genre is unknown, because many bands in metal have history of selling out after they "make it". Metallica for example, have a huge history of pissing on their thrash fans with every new album since the black album. Carcass is probably the best example of a
death metal band, as it covers genres associated with
death metal:
death metal, grindcore (or goregrind) and melodic
death metal. Carcass also tends to be the best
death metal band in existence. A recent trend in Scandanavia seems to involve crossing genres, Children of Bodom, for example, are said to be a mixture of melodic
death metal, melodic black metal and power metal. Despite it's dismissal by the mainstream music industry,
death metal has many talented musicians, the "
death growl" for example is extremely difficult to master, guitars can be incredibly complex, especially in melodic and even more-so, technical death metal, drums are fast and the best drummers incorporate difficult and complex techniques. If power metal is for fantasy nerds, death metal is for people who drink whiskey and shit dynamite, not unlike thrash metal and black metal.
