Florida death metal
Florida death metal | |
---|---|
Stylistic origins | Death metal, thrash metal, progressive metal |
Cultural origins | Mid-to-late 1980s |
Typical instruments | Guitar, bass, drums, vocals |
Local scenes | |
Tampa Bay area | |
Other topics | |
List of Florida death metal bands |
Florida death metal is a regional scene and stylistic subdivision of death metal. Some of the most significantly pioneering and best-selling death metal acts emerged in Florida, especially in the Tampa Bay area. As a result, Tampa is unofficially known by many death metal fans as the "capital of death metal." The scene coalesced in the mid-1980s through early 1990s around the output of bands such as Death, Nasty Savage, Deicide, Monstrosity, Morbid Angel, Atheist, Obituary, and others. The producer Scott Burns and the studio Morrisound Recording were also instrumental in developing and popularizing the Florida scene. Some bands which originated outside of Florida, such as Malevolent Creation and Cannibal Corpse, relocated to the state in order to participate in this burgeoning scene. The Florida bands featured a more technical approach to the evolving death metal sound, a style which spread beyond the confines of the state, and some were instrumental in creating the progressive death metal subgenre. The death metal genre as a whole, including the Florida scene, declined in popularity in the second half of the 1990s, but many bands within the Florida scene persisted and the scene resurged in popularity in subsequent decades.
Characteristics
Features of death metal
Death metal is an
The Florida scene was key in the genre's development, with the extremely fast, machine gun-like blast-beats and low, nearly unintelligible vocals of Florida bands helping distinguish death metal from its roots in thrash metal.[5] Through the work of producers such as Scott Burns, the raw, primitive sound of early bands transformed into a thicker, more brutal sound.[5] Obituary and Malevolent Creation introduced groove to the genre, while the song "Imperial Doom" by Monstrosity inspired the more complex technical direction the scene would take.[5] Chris Barnes of Cannibal Corpse, which re-located from Buffalo, New York to Tampa in 1990,[6] and Glen Benton of Deicide also influenced the development of the death growl.[5] The production values from Burns often focused on instrumentals rather than the voice, so the vocalists would chiefly use their voice for percussive and instrumental effect. For instance, Obituary's vocalist John Tardy said that "if I couldn't come up with the words to go along with the song, I'd just kinda make something up and just fill in something that wasn't maybe a word, but it sounded good and fit in the song."[7]
Particular traits of the Florida scene
In addition to its contributions to core death metal traits, the Florida style includes additional unique aspects. Generally, guitar tunings are not dropped as low as in other death metal styles, and the playing is considered by many to be tighter, clearer, and more precise. The guitar playing is often more technical than that of other death metal variants.[5] Professor Michelle Phillipov explains that death metal songs usually are constructed as a series of riffs, with each riff section added onto the next. The Florida style takes this further, and juxtaposes different riffs in jarring succession.[8] For instance, the Obituary song "Deadly Intentions" (1989) switches between six different riffs, played variously at normal time, half-time, and double-time. The song lacks a verse-chorus structure, and before any riff section is repeated, the five others are played, and the tempo accelerated or decelerated throughout.[8] Similar is Morbid Angel's "Maze of Torment" (1989), which alternates between "muscular, 'headbanging' riffs" and extended blast beats, off-balancing the rhythm's center. The intensity of the riffing often results in the vocals and instruments mixing into a singular blocks of sound, making it difficult for listeners to anticipate sectional transitions.[8]
Obituary frequently plays moving power chords in tritones using inversions. These riffs are often based on E Phrygian, except the 3 and a ♭5 are added before the riff repeats. A syncopated rhythm with chord changes consisting of two punctuated quarter-notes and one regular quarter-note is typical of many Obituary songs. Sometimes the riff is played with open chords, sometimes combined with tremolo picking "where the notes change on the 'and' of beat 2 and beat 4." On slower songs, the E Phrygian is played except with a natural 2 in the last measure. The power chords are inverted to allow the chord to be played on the fifth string and retain a thick sound on the sixth. Use of a fourth interval instead of a fifth adds a level of dissonance. A simple rhythm that alternates between sixteenth-notes and eighth-notes is also common for the band.[9]
One of the frequently applied techniques of Morbid Angel is using only a few power chords and
Early albums by
Early output by Deicide frequently utilized riffs with a figure that was always "a descending minor second followed by a descending major third." The guitar duo in the band at the time, Eric and Brian Hoffman, would move different chromatic patterns to different string sets using the same frets. They favored rhythmic displacement, especially in tremolo picked riffs.[9]
As the Florida scene advanced into the 1990s, many bands displayed increasing technical progression in their music. For instance, on the albums Spiritual Healing (1990) and Human (1991), Death, under the direction of its sole consistent member, Chuck Schuldiner, began playing more melodic guitar lines and increasingly complex tempo changes as well as more refined songwriting and lyrics.[10] Human, in particular, showcased jazz-influenced guitar work and polyrhythmic drumming, courtesy of respective Cynic members Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinart.[11] In 1990, the band Nocturnus released The Key, which featured science fiction lyrics and the use of keyboard.[12] Other Florida bands adopted even more technical and progressive approaches to death metal. For example, Atheist, formed in 1984 in Sarasota, and Cynic, formed in 1987 in Miami, both matured from their thrash and death metal roots into highly technical, jazz-style progressive death metal artists, with Cynic's work occasionally even bordering on jazz fusion.[13]
Violence at early concerts
Early concerts often featured gore and violence both from musicians and among audiences. The frontman of Nasty Savage, "Nasty" Ronnie Galletti, engaged in various antics such as smashing televisions on-stage, an activity that would leave him covered in blood.[14] Morbid Angel likewise utilized gruesome stage performances such as cutting themselves.[15] This behavior extended beyond concerts. Kelly Shaefer of Atheist recalls when he once encountered the members of Morbid Angel backstage "sitting around a chalice, cutting themselves and bleeding into the cup. I thought, That's fuckin' nuts. We played crazy music, but we didn't roll like that."[4] Shaefer also recalls violent incidents from mosh pits: "I saw someone get their eye poked out of the socket. The eyeball wasn't hanging out, it was pushed out to the side and the guy stayed in the pit with that fucked-up eye. I saw another guy get his ear half ripped off from the top. The whole top of it was flopping down from his head."[4] The band Deicide, formed under the name Amon in 1987, would fill mannequins and buckets with rotten organs acquired from local butchers and then spill the contents into the audience. Vocalist Glen Benton burnt an inverted cross into his forehead to advertise the vehemently anti-Christian stance of the band.[15] Benton would also join in the violence in the audience. For instance, at one concert he "made this armband with .308 Spitzer head [bullets] on it, and went through the crowd sticking that thing into people's backs. At the end of the night there were just a bunch of screws sticking out of the thing where all the bullet heads fell off the armbands. And there were all these people walking around with big blood spike marks on their backs."[4]
History
Beginnings (1982-1988)
Death metal emerged as a genre during the mid-1980s, primarily out of
Nasty Savage formed in 1982 in Brandon, Florida, a town in the Tampa Bay Area, and quickly attracted attention for its gruesome shock rock. The band soon added a second guitarist, and began playing more intricate and unusual time signatures, signature riffs, and diminished scales.[21] Nasty Savage released a demo recording in 1983, and quickly garnered attention from magazines and record labels. It signed a deal with Metal Blade Records and released its self-titled debut album in 1985.[21] The album was recorded at Morrisound Recording, which would also record the band's next two albums.[21]
Among the fans and frequent concert attendees of Nasty Savage were
Another Tampa-based, Morbid Angel, formed in 1983 and, like Nasty Savage, garnered attention for its gruesome stage antics.[28] Morbid Angel recorded a full-length album, Abominations of Desolation, in 1986, but did not release it as the group was dissatisfied with the results.[29] After Pete Sandoval from the California grindcore band Terrorizer joined Morbid Angel,[30] the band finally released its debut album, Altars of Madness, in 1989.[31]
Inspired by Nasty Savage, Death, Morbid Angel, and Savatage, in 1984 the band Obituary, then known as Xecutioner, formed. Vocalist John Tardy later explained that the aforementioned artists "really got me into it, got our band started. They made us want to be as heavy as we possibly could."[21] According to Tardy, "we moved from Miami to Tampa when we were young, and the first people we came in contact with in our neighborhood were the guys in Nasty Savage and Savatage. Those were the two bands that even got us interested in playing music."[4] Xecutioner was the first band picked up by Morrisound. Explains Tom Morris: "They cut a demo in a little 8-track studio we have and that's what got them signed. But when John and Donald [Tardy] first came in, I almost told them just to go home. I had never heard death-metal prior to that and I thought they were just wasting their time and money. But they were pretty insistent and went ahead and finished it and, obviously, they proved me wrong."[4] Borivoj Krgin, who later would found Blabbermouth.net, co-owned an independent record label Godly Records which was producing a compilation, Raging Death, to promote underground bands. Two Xecutioner songs, "Find the Arise" and "Like the Dead", were included on the 1987 compilation, which caught the attention of mainstream labels.[32] The band signed to Roadrunner Records and changed its name to Obituary in order to avoid confusion with other bands with the name "Executioner".[32]
As the Florida scene burgeoned, fans of Death, Morbid Angel, and Deicide would trade hand-drawn artwork and home-recorded demo tapes, and exchanged demos with overseas fans. By the late 1980s, the Sunset Club was selling out at its maximum capacity of 200 people. Attracted by these successes, the Buffalo, New York band Malevolent Creation re-located to Florida in 1988, where it soon was signed to Roadrunner Records.[33]
Peak period (1989-1994)
The Morbid Angel release Altars of Madness set a new precedent for heavy metal bands. AllMusic writer Jason Birchmeier states that "With the arguable exception of Chuck Schuldiner's Death, never before had a heavy metal band carried their lightning-fast guitar riffs and equally spellbinding guitar solos into such horrific territory."
Seeking better production quality and the thriving local scene, Cannibal Corpse of Buffalo, New York, in 1990 relocated to Florida, like their Buffalo compatriots Malevolent Creation had done a few years prior.[38] The bassist Alex Webster states that "Morrisound was the first studio in the United States — well, the world, really — that had a handle on what to do."[21] The band released its debut, Eaten Back to Life, which featured "remarkably low and unintelligible" vocals from Chris Barnes.[39] In the same year, Deicide released their debut album, which featured riffs and solos in the style of Slayer and multi-layered vocals,[40] and Death released Spiritual Healing, a record which demonstrated a shift by the band into a cleaner production approach and slower, more technical instrumentation and more refined songwriting.[41] Nocturnus also released their debut album, The Key, which with its science fiction themes and use of keyboards was very atypical and pioneering for the genre.[12]
Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic describes 1991 as "year one of death metal's world saturation."[25] In that year, Morbid Angel released Blessed Are the Sick[42] and Death released Human. Human saw Death continue its development of a technical and progressive style, abandoned the previous themes of zombies and gore in favor of more philosophical and political lyrics, and featured the talents of Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinart of the then-unsigned Cynic.[43] Though Morbid Angel and Death fared well, tragedy struck the band Atheist, which, while on tour with Candlemass in February 1991, suffered a tour bus crash which claimed the life of bassist Roger Patterson. The band decide to continue with the recording for their next album and dedicate it to their lost band-mate, for whom Tony Choy filled in to complete the needed bass work. The final product, Unquestionable Presence, was released in October of that year.[44] Both more intricate and accessible than the band's previous record, with complicated time signatures, slap bass, dissonant and speedy riffs, and enigmatic lyrics, the recording is considered one of the scene's ultimate progressive metal outputs.[45] James Hinchcliffe, in a retrospective in Terrorizer, described Unquestionable Presence as "the very pinnacle of scorching yet brain-twisting technical metal."[46] In 1992, Monstrosity debuted with Imperial Doom, but then after some touring saw its original band lineup fall apart.[47] Nocturnus, shortly after its third, self-titled 1993 release, disbanded.[48] Death continued to further develop their progressive sound, releasing Individual Thought Patterns in 1993. Taking the technicality seen previously on Human to an even greater level, Individual Thought Patterns cemented Death's reputation as not only one of death metal's founders, but as "one of its most creative, musically proficient, and listenable bands."[49] Morbid Angel released Covenant in 1993. The latter marked the high point for death metal not only in Florida but in the genre as a whole. It was lauded by audiences and critics, and experienced, for the genre, immense commercial success, selling over 127,000 copies.[50] Michael Nelson of Stereogum retroactively summarized it as "not just the best death metal album ever, but the best-selling death metal album, too."[51] Cynic, after a planned tour in Europe with the Dutch band Pestilence fell through when Pestilence disbanded, decided to disband as well.[52]
Decline (1994-2001)
Encouraged by the financial success of Covenant, other major labels such as
Subsequent developments (2001-present)
Enduring the decline of death metal in the mid- and late-1990s and the dissolution of many bands, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, and Obituary have remained central to the scene, and Monstrosity and Malevolent Creation have released powerful albums.
Influence
Florida, specifically Tampa, would become known as the colloquial world capital of death metal.
See also
Citations
- ^ Purcell 2015, pp. 39–49, 53; Phillipov 2012, p. 93; RivadaviaB; Wiederhorn 2017
- ^ Purcell 2015, pp. 39–49, 53; Wiederhorn 2017
- ^ Purcell 2015, pp. 39–49, 53; RivadaviaB
- ^ a b c d e f g Wiederhorn 2019
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Purcell 2015, p. 18
- ^ Cridlin, Jay (November 2013). "After 25 years, Cannibal Corpse still a driving force in Tampa death metal". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
- ^ Phillipov 2012, pp. 79–80
- ^ a b c Phillipov 2012, p. 82
- ^ a b c d e Schneider 2019; Wiederhorn 2017
- ^ RivadaviaC; Wagner 2010, pp. 163–164
- ^ Wagner 2010, pp. 163–164
- ^ a b Bellino 2019; HendersonA; Monger; O'Connor 2019
- ^ DaRonco; RivadaviaB
- ^ Stevenson 2009; Wiederhorn 2017
- ^ a b Wiederhorn 2019; Wiederhorn 2017
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 53; RivadaviaH; de Paola 2000; Prato; Wiederhorn 2019
- ^ de Paola 2000; HueyC; HueyD
- ^ RivadaviaE; Purcell 2015, pp. 53–54
- ^ Wiederhorn 2019; Wiederhorn 2017; Marshall 2018; Guzzo 2018a Later known for progressive and symphonic metal, at the time it performed a mixture of traditional heavy metal with speed, thrash, death, and power metal.Wiederhorn 2019; Wiederhorn 2017; Marshall 2018; Hitt 2018; Orens
- ^ a b Guzzo 2018a
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Stevenson 2009
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 54; Stevenson 2009; RivadaviaB
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 54; Stevenson 2009
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 54; RivadaviaB
- ^ a b c d RivadaviaB
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 55; RivadaviaB
- ^ RivadaviaB; Purcell 2015, p. 57
- ^ Prato; Bowar 2017; Purcell 2015, p. 56
- ^ HueyA
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 57
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 59; Bowar 2017
- ^ a b c d e Guzzo 2018b
- ^ Malevolent Creation 2019; HueyB
- ^ a b BirchmeierA
- ^ a b c BirchmeierB
- ^ a b c d Miller 2017
- ^ DaRonco; RivadaviaD
- ^ Blum 2013
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 59
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 58
- ^ RivadaviaC; Purcell 2015, p. 59; RivadaviaG
- ^ Bowar 2017
- ^ RivadaviaC; Shteamer 2017; Pratt 2011
- ^ DaRonco; RivadaviaH
- ^ RivadaviaG
- ^ Hinchcliffe 2005, p. 72
- ^ Rivadavia 2018
- ^ a b Monger
- ^ RivadaviaB; HueyB
- ^ Stevenson 2009; Nelson 2013; Blum 2013
- ^ Nelson 2013
- ^ RivadaviaA
- ^ Stevenson 2009; Nelson 2013; Wiederhorn 2019; Wiederhorn 2017; Purcell 2015, p. 71
- ^ a b Purcell 2015, p. 70
- ^ Ankeny
- ^ a b Preira 2012
- ^ Purcell 2015, pp. 70–71
- ^ Purcell 2015, p. 18; HendersonB
- ^ Hundey
- ^ RivadaviaB; Torreano
- ^ Purcell 2015, pp. 18, 74; Cridlin 2018
- ^ RivadaviaB; Atheist 2006; Atheist 2008
- ^ Blum 2013
- ^ Wagner 2010, p. 161
- ^ Hartmann 2013; Hartmann 2014
- ^ Sullivan 2012
- ^ Hartmann 2012; Shaw 2012
- ^ Bellino 2019; Monger; O'Connor 2019
- ^ Guzzo 2018a; Roa 2015
- ^ Roa 2015
- ^ Miller 2017; Orpheum 2014
- ^ Roa 2019
- ^ Blum 2013; Guzzo 2018a
- ^ RivadaviaB; Torreano; Schneider 2019
- ^ Phillipov 2012, p. 119; Wiederhorn 2017
- ^ Phillipov 2012, pp. 119–120
- ^ Wiederhorn 2017
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