A form of music that developed in the mid 1980's from thrash. Possessed recorded a song entitled "Death Metal" in 1984, which would appear on their debut album Seven Churches in 1985. Other bands such as Aggression, Death, Necrophagia, Nun Slaughter, Slaughter Lord and even Slayer contributed to the movement. What defined death metal was the fact that it was basically an exaggerated form of thrash--everything from the vocals (which transformed into a mix of growling, grunting and rasping) to the drumming was made harsher and heavier than before. The music itself became somewhat anti-rhythmic, and in some cases experimental (as seen with Darkthrone's Goatlord album, or the modern technicality of Necrophagist). The first bands to really modernize the movement included Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, the virtually unkown Necrovore, Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Ripping Corpse, among others. Death metal could range from the blood and gore horror imagery of Cannibal Corpse, to the satanic overtones of Deicide, to the political statements carried by Dying Fetus. Some criticize death metal as they feel the musicians do nothing but randomly band their instruments. Nothing could be further from the truth--listen to Morbid Angel's album Covenant, for instance, or Cannibal Corpse's Gore Obsessed, to get a better perspective on the scene.

A phrase to describe someone who is cognitively degenerating. Synonym of "going off the deep end". Can have varying degrees of severity.

Reference to the song "Hey You" by Pink Floyd. The line "and the worms ate into his brain" makes no sense in an otherwise linear and literal narration throughout the lyrics.

A brutal sub-genre of heavy metal. Misplaced anger is often put towards this genre by ignorant people who think jazz is really avant-garde.

Death metal usually includes but is not limited to fast riffage, growling vocals, and blast beats. Modern death metal has some grindcore influence. Yes, it does take talent to vocalize like that. Record yourself "growling" and let's see how professinal you sound.

Death Metal is a genre of metal composed of blastbeats, crunchy and technical guitar riffs, intricate bass lines, and usually gutteral vocal styles. Death metal uses these all and is uncomprehendable to all people without a musical background. The complexity overloads most peoples minds, they can only settle for simple things like "tappin that ass!!" Death metal is one of the most unapriciated forms of metal because of its complexity and its technicality. This is also the metal that scares preps into thinking metalheads are goths.

Originally a sub-genre of thrash metal pioneered by Possessed but made better by other band Death and Morbid Angel. The genre involves highly distorted, fast-paced guitars, blast beating drums and vocals that are unintelligible or make lyrics hard to understand.

Today there are several sub-genres of death metal. Technical death metal focuses on having complex leads and song structures. Brutal death metal is all about pushing death metal past the boundaries in speed and aggression. Melodic death metal has higher pitch vocals and melodic guitars. Deathgrind fuses the complexity of death metal with the speed and aggression of grindcore. Death/doom fuses the double bass drumming and growling vocals of death metal and the slow tempo and pessimistic mood of doom metal. And deathcore mixes the gore of death metal with the core of metalcore to get a genre even more gay and worse than metalcore.

Actually, Death Metal isn't simply about satan/death/killing ect. Grindcore/death metal masters NAPALM DEATH have had a long history of political statments in thier music. The afformentioned Satan enlightens and brings forth religious ideas and concepts. In reality, Death Metal can be inteligent. However, bands like Obituary and Cannibal Corpse stay true to the no-brains-kill-em-all style, (good fun) but try not to tar all music of one genre with the same brush.

A style of music whose listeners know and appreciate the level of skill and often "tight" musicianship, characterized by the ability to churn out complex 32nd and 64th note riffs with almost inhuman precision.

Also a style of music whose detractors refer to as "satanic" or "evil," despite the fact that the vast majority of them either have never actually heard any death metal.