The 15 Albums That Made 1991 The Greatest Year In Death Metal History!

Autopsy – Mental Funeral

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The thickest, most putrid sound of death imaginable is at the very core of Autopsy’s death/doom masterpiece, the incomprehensibly evil sounding Mental Funeral.

Wallowing in the kind of muddy riffs that submerge the senses, Mental Funeral bucked the prevailing death metal trends of playing faster and playing harder and instead upped the brutality by slowing….things….right….down.

In turn, Autopsy did hit harder, announcing themselves as the go-to death metal band for those who sought variation to go along with their gore. There was still speed when speed was required of course (check out “Robbing The Grave” from the 21 minute mark) but the impact was greater due to the lumbering doom riffs that often preceded these furious bursts of noise.

When death metal was at it’s freshest and during it’s most enticing and exciting period, Autopsy dragged the genre back down in the gutter, to writhe in the decaying mass of human existence. Which is exactly where it belonged!

Carcass – Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious

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Another UK band to dump grindcore in favour of a (slightly) more accessible death metal sound, Carcass truly proved their mettle on Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious, culminating in their finest hour and one of the defining moments in UK death metal history.

Managing to be both a prime slab of mutilated old-school death/grind and a pioneer of tech/progressive death metal, Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious blew fans and critics away on its release in 1991 and continues to be revered as a defining moment in death metal history (UK or otherwise).

With a new guitarist in the formidable shape of Mike Amott (Arch Enemy) adding layers to their sound, Carcass as a unit were obviously improving at a formidable rate with across-the-board performances proving exemplary and arguably never bettered. Each track was a mind-blowing cacophony of tempo-changes, melodic guitar leads, brutal riffing and Jeff Walker’s instantly recognisable growls culminated in an extreme metal masterpiece for the ages.

Immolation – Dawn Of Possession

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The word classic gets bandied around with alarming regularity of late (and we’re as guilty as the next blog) but there’s no other way to describe a moment in extreme metal history that continues to surpass 99.9% of all death metal out there. We refer, of course, to Immolation’s awe-inspiring debut album, Dawn Of Possession. Released today this would still blow minds but as it stands, Dawn Of Possession is a time-capsule that perfectly encapsulates the experimental inventiveness of early 90’s death metal….a time when anything seemed possible and the idea of ‘heavy’ was being routinely challenged.

These New York natives were darkness incarnate and blessed (or should that be possessed) with some of the most sinister and hauntingly disharmonic riffs in the then fledgling genre. They were beyond heavy, they were the sound of demonic armageddon and their ever-threatening grooves and chromatic displays of precision riffing were the next logical step in death metal’s evolution.

Immolation may have evolved into an ever more technical wrecking machine over the years but Dawn Of Possession is home to their most vivid collection of twisted tunes.