90s Death Metal: ANOTHER 6 Obscure Albums You Need to Hear

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Leave your Deicide, Suffocation, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse albums at the door. These 6 death metal obscurities demand to be heard!

Presented in alphabetical order as opposed to any sort of ranking….

Demented Ted – Promises Impure (1993) [USA]

Demented Ted may have released just the one album but Promises Impure was still an album worthy of reverence, despite its ‘one and done’ status.

At times brutally simple, Demented Ted were still savvy enough to incorporate groove and technicality to create a satisfying mix of all that made early 90’s death metal so damn satisfying.

One of those albums that has been seemingly lost to the annals of time but sure as hell warrants rediscovery, Promises Impure will undoubtedly encourage nostalgic feelings and a tingling in those soft parts that remember the joy of death metal discovery back in the early 1990’s!

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Desecrator – Subconscious Releases (1991) [UK]

Dan Seagrave cover art, a raw and aggressive sound, technicality matched by brutality; Desecrator’s Subconscious Release should have been huge! Instead, this cult item is merely a footnote in death metal history but it deserves to be held in considerable high regard for delivering a focused lesson in classic death metal violence.

Following a similar path travelled by Death (Leprosy-era) and Sweden’s Dismember, Desecrator’s groove heavy onslaught revelled in muscular, lengthy and, above all, catchy songwriting.

While a slight sense of repetition sneaks in when absorbing Subconscious Release in its entirety, the same accusation can be made of many a death metal album that bludgeoned the listener with ostensibly the same sound – Deicide being one of them – and nobody gave two shits!

Desecrator’s one and only album should have been enough to endear them to the masses as it’s an outstanding moment of UK death metal mastery; backed by a collection of expertly delivered death metal songs.

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Gutted – Bleed For Us To Live (1994) [USA]

Gutted excelled at their relatively unique blend of classic death metal with thrash and death/doom elements and with Bleed For Us To Live they delivered a true underground classic – one which provided just as many neck-wrecking grooves as their Swedish contemporaries Entombed, Grave etc.

The vocals are a revelation and some of the best in business, with range and clarity adding layers to what is a forceful showing of guttural power. Fortunately, the music matches this quality and intensity and remains both brutal yet ridiculously catchy.

The epitome of the sheer strength and breadth of 90’s American death metal, Bleed For Us To Live remains an absolute classic from an era that seemed to vomit forth albums of this calibre on a weekly basis!

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Horror Of Horrors – Sounds Of Eerie (1994) [USA]

Horror of Horrors‘ little known debut, Sounds Of Eerie, is a curiousty that’s for sure…..but it’s also an under-appreciated gem that’s ripe for rediscovery!

An old-school slab of death metal sickness, what Horror Of Horrors may have lacked in originality they more than made up for in brutality and Sounds Of Eerie is actually a strong debut from a band who would go on to boast having Kevin Talley (ex-Dying Fetus, ex-Misery Index, ex-Six Feet Under, ex-Suffocation), in its ranks.

Sinister, occasionally thrashy and focused on delivering nothing but a harrowing experience, this was horrifically heavy stuff in 1994 and precious few bands were matching Horror of Horrors in the ferocity stakes.

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Jumpin’ Jesus – The Art Of Crucifying (1991) [Germany]

Despite saddling themselves with a god-awful band name, Jumpin’ Jesus played some seriously skilled and brutally complex death metal. With a sound that wasn’t too far removed from that coming out of Florida’s Morrisound Studios there was enough (typically German) eccentricity to stand Jumpin’ Jesus out from the pack.

Unafraid to throw some curveballs into the mix and simply be plain fuckin’ weird at times, it’s the freakish time signatures and odd noises that made The Art Of Crucifying so intriguing. Highly technical and with a distinct dual guitar attack, Mike Gage and Oliver Ulrich were a seriously unhinged pairing who unleashed a torrent of incredibly wild riffs and solos on this, Jumpin’ Jesus’ only album.

Cohesive structure be damned, this shit was intense, it was untamed and it was (sadly) one of a kind.

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Resurrection – Embalmed Existence (1993) [USA]

Florida’s Resurrection may have arrived a little late to the Floridian death metal party – and you’re really gonna be up against it when the likes of Deicide, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Atheist and Death are your nearest competition – but their 1993 debut, Embalmed Existence, should still be considered more than just a footnote in the annals of early 90’s death metal.

Fully embracing the progressive nature of the majority of their peers, Resurrection’s skill lay in tempering the blast beats with slamming grooves, varied pace and a penchant for otherworldly and eerie experimentation.

The over use of soundbites is a distraction but the music on display is nothing less than impressive throughout, with a strong sense of Obituary’s circa Cause Of Death informing much of the work found on Embalmed Existence. Not that Resurrection were copying John Tardy and the boys wholesale. Instead, their series of slowly decaying anthems and, sometimes, measured and sedate pace, draws comparison with Obituary’s sophomore album while affording them their own cloying sense of overriding menace.