Retroview: New York Death Metal

Before there was slam metal as we know it today, there was NYDM. When I discovered NYDM, I was listening to Morbid Angel, Obituary, Napalm Death, and all the other classics. I loved those bands, but it wasn't quite scratching the itch. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew I wanted to hear something more... When I first heard the slamming slamz of the NYDM sound, it was like someone reached into my brain and pulled out the sounds I had in my head and put them onto, er, cassette. It was as though I had found my musical soulmate! On that note, this is far from a comprehensive study of NYDM, but here is an overview of the bands that I liked the most.



Pyrexia
I will start with my favorite NYDM band. They don't get nearly as much press as Suffocation or Internal Bleeding, despite sharing some members, but in my opinion they are better than either. That's right, better than Suffo!! They aren't as accessible as Suffo because they don't really use melody as much, they just fuckin' slam, slam, and slam some more. "Sermon of Mockery" is their best release, although I like all of their records. After "Sermon" they changed their style up, and followed it up with the "Hatredangeranddisgust" EP and "System of the Animal" LP. Unlike "Sermon," which is just pure death metal, those two records pretty much sound like hardcore, or more specifically like Hatebreed playing death metal covers. They're good for sure, but nothing like "Sermon." I recommend that you download all of them, but definitely don't sleep on "Sermon."



Baphomet
Buffalo's Baphomet get no love! OK, they're definitely not the best band of all time, but they don't have to be, they just have to slam- and slam they do. Baphomet is one of those bands that are sort of like Kraft singles: you know they're a shitty, half-assed imitation of the real thing, but you can't help but binge on them every now and then anyway. With that said, I would say this record is for genre enthusiasts only... but still awesome! It's meat-and-potatoes NYDM with no frills or fancy shit, but for some of us, that's just what the doctor ordered.



Internal Bleeding
If you were into this shit in the 90s, you remember how controversial Internal Bleeding were. Lots of people hated on them for their Long Island guido steez, but "Voracious Contempt" struck a chord with all kinds of douchebags and meatheads such as myself. Years later, I was at a Suffocation show in Poughkeepsie, and the fat guy who was singing for them at the time was sweating my girlfriend at the time super hard because she was a skinny indie girl with good hair. In her words, "he wanted it bad." Malamor also played that show, who almost warrant a paragraph in this post... but not quite. They will be featured in the upcoming post entitled "Bands who are named after marshmallows." Anyway, Internal Bleeding didn't invent the "slamz for slamz' sake" style, but they definitely popularized it. For those about the slam, we salute you!



Suffocation
I'm not going to write about Suffocation because I hope everybody reading this is more than familiar with them. All I'm going to say is this: do you remember the Spazz song "The Egg On The Hirax Cover"? They should have written one called "The Killer Robot On The Effigy Of The Forgotten Cover." If you'd like to read more about our thoughts on Suffocation, please read this article which goes into extensive detail on Frank Mullen's Trump Plaza shirt from the "Effigy" photo shoot.



Dehumanized
These guys were B-level for sure, and not that great. Their record was pretty much just OK, except for the song "Prophecies Foretold" which was fucking siiiiiiiiiiiiiiick! I was equal parts bummed and surprised that I couldn't find the studio version of the song on Youtube, but you can at least catch a live version above. Watching them bounce to the slam parts is worth a LOL or two when you're not busy moshing your balls off.


Disfigured
I am extremely disappointed that I couldn't find any of their songs on Youtube! It's 2009, shouldn't every song by every obscure Long Island slam metal band be available within like four mouse clicks?! Where's Al Gore, I would like to lodge a complaint. In any case, Disfigured were like thinking man's NYDM. Their song structures were more interesting and nuanced than other B-level bands like, say, Dehumanized, and they could definitely play their instruments a lot better. The drummer, whose name I forget, was particularly good. I know it was something French-sounding, we'll just call him George St. Pierre for now. Anyway, these guys were/are highly underrated, and if there is any justice in the world they will attain legendary kvlt status like Ripping Corpse and Havohej. If you want to impress the Guttural Slamming Brutality Crew with how down you are with NYDM, do yourself a favor and download their EP, "Prelude to Dimentia."



Repudilation / Entorturement / 420
I am lumping all three of these bands together because they shared many of the same members, and were similar in sound and spirit. I could go on forever about them, but for now I'll just say that all you need to know is that these guys were the first geniuses to combine rap and slam metal! Also, the drummer for Repudilation used an ice bell for a ride, which is kind of hilarious and awesome at the same time. And let's talk about how amazingly awful these kids were at naming bands. I mean, it just went from bad to worse! Repudilation is at least a real word, but Entorturement is one of the worst names ever. It was a big source of inspiration for Lucho and I when we named our band Disengorgmentification. But then they managed to one-up themselves by calling their next band fucking 420! It's like the best part of ICP, Internal Bleeding, and Cypress Hill all wrapped up into one. Needless to say I love all three of these bands a lot! If anyone has the full version of the 420 album in the video above, please link it in the comments!!



Morpheus Descends
I'll conclude with one of the godfathers of NYDM. They're really more of the Demolition Hammer style of half-thrash, half-death metal in that they never blast and never really slam, but if you listen closely like the RCA dog, you can def hear the roots of slam in there. Because they were on JL America, the only label shittier than Wild Rags, it was kind of hard to get into Morpheus Descends back in the day. If you were really down with NYDM, though, you tracked that shit down because you saw the dudes in Suffocation rocking Morpheus Descends shirts all the time. And you knew that if it was good enough for Terrence Hobbes, it was fucking good enough for you!! Anyway, if you're into Incantation or that style of sludgy, proto-NYDM, make sure you track this shit down. CORPSE UNDER GLASS!

Retroview: Forced Entry

Two Sacred Reich shirts in the same picture?! Isn't there some kind of law against that?

I grew up in Snohomish County, Washington- about 25 miles north of Seattle. Seattle is a pretty happening town now, with lots of bands, artists, cultural events, and industry icons like Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, Boeing and Nintendo headquartered there, but back in the 80s and early, pre-Nirvana 90s, it was different. Back then, it was mostly weird, isolated rednecks that marched to the beat of their own drum. Bands like The Accused, Dumt, Date Rape, and *cough* Bigtop did their own thing and generally attracted almost no national attention. Forced Entry were no exception: they played a pretty unique brand of thrash that wasn't really like anything else out there, and aside from a small cult following, nobody ever really gave a fuck. To atone for my earlier Crazytown post, though, here is a look back at the mighty Forced Entry, my favorite band in 7th grade!


Thrashing The Helpless Down demo / Uncertain Future LP (1987/1989)
Forced Entry started off as a very good, but not super noteworthy thrash band. They were definitely on the heavier end of things, especially for 1989- I'd say they were one notch below Solstice / Demolition Hammer / Malevolent Creation-style "death metal." I put it in quotes because, as Lucho Metales and I often talk about, it really is death metal in name only when you compare it to Suffocation, Internal Bleeding, Pyrexia, and so forth. I'm lumping the demo in with this album because they're mostly the same songs (maybe even the same recordings? I don't remember).



This album is totally good, and you should definitely pick it up if you get the chance, it's just not as mindblowing as their second one! There's nothing wrong with it at all, but it's pretty fun to go down the thrash metal checklist and tick off items one by one:

• Oil painting on the cover, although they probably couldn't afford Repka so they got their buddy from Edmonds Community College to whip something up
• Lyrics about toxic waste and mutants:
  Stagnant earth, chemical wastes
  Chaos ruling, it never waits
  Mutant cells, join as one
  Lethal minds spell destruction
  
• Picture of themselves looking like they just woke up from a coma, complete with puffy high tops (see above)

7/10 bloody axes


As Above, So Below (1991)
Now this is a masterpiece of technical, progressive thrash! Imagine the precision and brutality of Dark Angel with the angular, progressive touches of maybe Cynic or something and you have an idea of what to expect. Although it is impossible without access to the Nocturnus time machine, it almost sounds like they were listening to a lot of Oppressor's "Agony," because the riffs are more than a little bit similar. You might remember the song "Macrocosm Microcosm," which got a fair amount of airplay on Headbanger's Ball, but that song is by far the weakest part of this album. The rest are full of technical, cock-smashing brutality like the lead track, "Bone Crackin' Fever":



The majority of the songs are long, twisting epics with tons of weird syncopation and meandering riffs (in a good way), but they do keep it very real with another thrash staple, the goofy party song. In fact, this album includes not one but two goofy party songs: "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," which is about bongs, administering cunnilingus, urinating on oneself, and other trappings of being a white trash metalhead. The chorus is "Get fucked up!"

The other one is "We're Dicks," which is a song that articulates their anti-authoritarian, individualistic philosophy and highlights their belief in personal freedom. I'll warn you right now that the language is a bit coarse, but if you can handle that, the song is simply splendid.

With an album this awesome, the cover art isn't really critical, but it's a nice bonus that this is a pretty sharp design, all things considered. The composition is a bit static because it's symmetrical, but the use of color is remarkably vibrant for a thrash record in 1991, and I really like the illustration style on the hands.

10/10 bloody axes

The Shore (1995)
Hey, nobody bats 1.000, right? Even the best bands fall short sometimes, and unfortunately Forced Entry is no exception. This isn't bad, but like Uncertain Future, it just isn't that awesome in comparison to As Above, So Below. Like a lot of thrash bands, they tried to slow things down and did a little of the groove metal thing, and nobody wanted that to happen. Leave that to Pantera, the masters of power groove. Forced Entry did it pretty well, all things considered, but it's just not what you came for, you know? I give them a pass on this EP because it doesn't suck, but I wouldn't encourage you to seek it out (and it's really hard to find).

5/10 bloody axes

Cock-smashing brutality: The best death metal song intros

When I'm not thinking of ways to meet Lauren Conrad or the girls from 90210, I enjoy studying the intricacies of death metal songwriting. The best songs aren't just a bunch of mindless double bass and monotonous blast beats, they're finely crafted opuses that are painstakingly assembled riff by slamming riff, like a brutal ship-in-a-bottle. Perhaps the most important part of such a masterpiece is the intro, and with that in mind, I present several of our favorites...



Cannibal Corpse - Hammer Smashed Face
When we're talking about the best death metal intros of all time, you would be out of your hammer-smashed skull not to put this song at the top of the list. Cannibal Corpse is, without a doubt, one of the most generic, dullest death metal bands, yet this song is the perfect marriage of catchy hooks and cock-smashing brutality! I'll be honest, it's been a long time since I paid much attention to them, but what fucking happened?! Chris Barnes is writing song after ass-rapingly awful song about pot, wearing Jncos and Star Trek shirts, and Corpsegrinder would rather be playing WoW... I mean, I understand that as people get older they lose touch with the trends, and that's fine... but christ, these guys take irrelevant fossils to a whole new level. If there is a god, Chris Barnes will get hit by a meteor and spare the worl of another Six Feet Under performance.



Suffocation - Human Waste
As soon as the song starts, you hear the Hellraiser sample, and you're all "Oh shit, son, this is spooky as fuck... What's coming next?!" The hair on your arms stands up, because you know the song is going to be some super brutal brutality, and it doesn't disappoint!! The intro riff on this song is without a doubt the sickest thing ever recorded at the time, considering that this song is from their 1990 demo (I didn't hear it until 92 or whatever, though, on "Corporate Death"). The rest of the song is pretty slammin' too, but the first minute or so is really what will knock your dick in the dirt with pit riffment. Every time I hear this song, I put on a Trump Plaza shirt and some sweat pants and jump around my room pretending I'm Frank Mullen.



Obituary - The End Complete
Before wigger slam existed, I listened to Obituary when I needed a dose of groove in my death metal. Obituary are a great band because they always emphasized good songwriting over speed or brutality for their own sake, and this is a great example. Aside from having an awesome intro, it also has a super sweet outro- it starts AND finishes strong, like good porn. I am pretty sure I've posted about this video before, but the best part is Alan West's Rollins Band and Red Hot Chili Peppers shirts. There's nothing funnier than when fans are disappointed by how un-brutal a band is, like when you see Glen Benton taking out the trash or whatever. But that sort of thing is Lucho Metales' speciality, so I'll leave it to him to go into more detail.



Devourment - Babykiller
If there is such a thing as a flagship single for wigger slam, it is definitely this song- especially the original version on 1.3.8. The sorely-missed Wayne Knupp's incredible vocal performance started a whole generation of cricket vocals, and it all started with the cock-smashingly brutal intro to this awesome song. It's nearly 5 minutes long, but I can listen to it the whole way through anytime it comes on my iPod. This song showed the death metal world that traditional musical concepts like melody, dynamics, structure, and lyrics were outdated assumptions, that the only thing that really matters is pit riffment. If you think about it, it was very avant garde and postmodern! Hopefully some grad school egghead will write a paper about this song called something like "Operationalizing pit riffment: Contradictions and paradoxes in Texas slam metal."

More marriages of awesome hooks and cock-smashing brutality?
As always, please tell us what we missed. There aren't a ton of great death metal intros on the level of these, but surely the list is longer that this post.