10 Old-School Death Metal Albums It’s Impossible To Live Without!
We. Can. Not. Live. Without. These. Albums!
Entombed – Left Hand Path (1990)
Entombed may have only been in their late teens when they released this seminal work but their youth was no reflection on the game-changing, buzzsaw noise that erupted from their fetid, putrid pool of groove and gore.
Brandishing a guitar-tone that sounded like a chainsaw cutting a swathe through decaying corpses, Entombed shouldered the burden of channeling Sweden’s endless pool of creativity and created an instant classic at the very first attempt.
While the influence of anarcho-punk pioneers Discharge can clearly be heard, this was an album that entered the new decade with nothing but nihilism and a new dawn on its mind. D-Beat repetition may have been an inspiration but Entombed were so much more than just mere plagiarists. Each track on Left Hand Path takes on a deathly life of its own, from the thrashing belligerence of “Revel In Flesh“, to the glorious grooves of “When Life Has Ceased” and on to the Satan-summoning “Premature Autopsy” in an exhilarating and enthralling 45 minutes.
The albums piece de resistance though is the eponymous, opening track itself, an epic masterpiece which should be heralded as one of Death Metal’s most breathtaking songs. It’s not often that a band can harness the entire power of their sound on the opening song of their debut album – Black Sabbath are one of the few to manage it – and “Left Hand Path” is the death metal equivalent of that metal milestone.
Left Hand Path is a legendary release from a band who steamrolled the gates of hell on their own path to infamy; definitive in every sense of the word.
Abramelin. Self Titled and Deadspeak albums. Check em out for ‘oldskool’.
Great albums!!
Deicide – Legion
Cannibal Corpse – The Bleeding
Benediction – Transcend the Rubicon
Pestilence – Testimony of the Ancients
Cynic – Focus
Edge of Sanity – Spectral Sorrows
Amorphis – Tales from the thousand lakes
Kataklysm – Sorcery
Gorefest – Erase
There are lots of old school albums in the genre I couldn’t live without. But I’m in total agreement with these. All genre defining masterpieces.