HYLI Vol. LXXXIV - The Top Death Metal Albums Ever
Andy waited until the week that Patrick's entire household was sick to make him listen to some internet list of the Best Death Metal Albums. Enjoy.
I (Andy) wanted to try this for a bit now. I’ve been going over the important death metal records since we started this newsletter. I’ve wanted to give Patrick a taste of as many ‘essentials’ as I could even though half the time I knew he’d hate them. Sorry, not sorry. We’ve done a great job but I wanted to sorta do a quick pass at some of the remaining ones. We don’t want to revisit Death’s entire discography here right? This project seems like the best way for Patrick to confidentially say he’s touched on many of the essentials of the genre.
How did I come up with this list? I looked at a bunch of lists and did an estimated list. This is not my personal list but a quick and dirty amalgamation of many lists found over the internet. The practice here isn’t to differentiate between what is ranked #1 and #2 but to highlight albums that are probably on most lists somewhere. Like….every list has Morbid Angel’s Altars of Madness. Even if you don’t love it, you know it belongs on the list of best/most important death metal albums. Every list has a bunch of Death albums and so forth. If you polled every Death Metal Dork these are probably making it on everyone’s list somewhere. So here it is, free of criticism.
Death - Human
Entombed - Left Hand Path
Death - Leprosy
Suffocation – Effigy Of The Forgotten
Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of The Mutilated
Dismember – Like an Ever Flowing Stream
Deicide – Deicide
Autopsy – Mental Funeral
We did a pretty great job of covering these so far. 7 of 15. 10 if you count not doubling (triples is best) up on Death and excluding Left Hand Path which I know Patrick already knew/enjoys (Patrick: Wolverine Blues is better, thanks!).
(Patrick here now. I got COVID last week and then my baby got COVID and then my wife got COVID. It’s only a matter of time until my dog and cat get COVID I guess. I would like to thank Andy for being a little fucking twerp and giving me seven albums to listen to in one week, most of which were closer to 45+ minutes than a half hour. He is going to say some bullshit about “well, you only had to listen to each once instead of multiple times for one album like normal weeks.” And, like, okay … but I’m not listening to the albums SEVEN times each week lol. Come on. Also, on top of all that, he texted me like five times throughout the week to be like “have you ever heard this” and then would send the worst music link imaginable. Each time I’d be like “hey man, I’m sick or my baby is sick or my wife is sick so I’m on baby duty, can you wait and try this next week, thanks!” and he’d be like “oh sure, I’ll just send you a different link in 5 hours and ask the same question then because I’m a fucking idiot.” We’re going into this week with a weird energy. It’s a weird time. I Hope You Like It As Always
Patrick here again. We are about to dive into these albums but I figured I would give my personal rankings of them before going album-by-album. Some were truly incredible and some sucked shit! Let’s go.
7: Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated
6: Suffocation - Effigy of the Fallen
5: Dismember - Like an Ever Flowing Stream
4: Death - Human
3: Autopsy - Mental Funeral
2: Death - Leprosy
1: Deicide - Deicide
Death - Human
Andy: For the sake of word count I’m not going to wax poetic on how good Death is and what they mean to the genre. They’re the best death metal band and they’ve made the best death metal records. Full stop. Any list that doesn’t include them is simply wrong! Human is great.
Patrick: Yeah, Death is great. Death is probably my favorite band that Andy has shown me and my second-favorite death metal band (shoutout Bolt Thrower, it appears the maker of Andy’s list had a stroke and forgot about them when making their list what the fuck) (Andy: yeah it should be on the list along with like 10 other bands, do you want it to be 30 albums long you thumb), though there is an opportunity for another band here to overtake them when I get around to checking out more albums. The riffing on this album is so great. We discussed it last year when Andy gave me Symbolic, but jesus christ could Chuck Shuldiner shred. I love Death’s style of death metal where it’s basically just faster thrash. Great record great band, this record just falls victim to their other records being better.
Death - Leprosy
Andy: I often think about how lucky we are that we ended up in a reality where the best death metal band has the name Death (Patrick: they’re named Bolt Thrower but sure I guess). Like, that is a stroke of fate for sure. Leprosy is also great. Truly any one of their albums could be on any “best of” list and it would be fine.
Patrick: I was surprised to find out Leprosy came out before Human, as this one feels much closer to Symbolic - which came out after both records - in tone and riffing. I fear the “tone” part might be due to a remastering/remix situation on streaming for one of the albums and not the other, but still, the writing feels more mature here than the one that came in between the two Great records. I’m not going to ride for Chuck more than I already have. He was a great vocalist and an insane guitarist. RIP the homie (Andy: pour one out). This album rocks.
Suffocation - Effigy Of The Forgotten
Andy: Suffocation’s Effigy Of The Forgotten is probably on most ‘best-of’ lists and is precisely the reason I wanted to tackle some of these albums in this format. I knew if I gave this to Patrick for a full week he’d be pretty peeved at me. A core influence for the brutal death metal movement of the 90’s, Effigy Of The Forgotten is a classic.
Patrick: Honestly, this was my least favorite of the albums musically. I don’t feel the vocals are good and they tend toward the trend of modern death metal of just being deep for the sake of being deep and I hate that shit. Some cool solos but the riffs seemed a bit weaker and, imo, death metal is a genre where the riff > the solo. I didn’t like a single song here. I picked the song for the video above based on “apple music starred this song because it’s ‘popular.’” Andy was correct to not give this to me on a regular HYLI week (Andy: You’re welcome). Bad times.
Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated
Andy: Everything brutal death metal should be. Cannibal Corpse really are the pioneers of my “lyrics don’t matter” rule. Very heavy, groovy riffs - just handcrafted for headbanging along. Barnes’ vocals here are near GOAT status (although I don’t think Patrick loves this style of vocal, which I totally understand) One of the heaviest albums ever. Even Ace Ventura loves them.
Patrick: I’m not, like, a squeamish person. But come on. This artwork sucks (Andy: I agree it’s the worst of this list for sure). The song titles suck. The lyrics, which Andy says don’t matter but texted to me several passages of while I was sick with COVID-19 and in bed, are bad at best and vile at worst. I had a bad time. I hope to never think of this crap again.
Dismember - Like an Ever Flowing Stream
Andy: Swedish death metal at its absolute best. The first time I listened to this record I was Googling ‘best death metal albums ever’ so it has to be on this list. The mixing on this album is the opposite of Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation’s ‘wall of noise’ intent. I’ve almost chosen this like 10 times for HYLI. Great riffs, great solos, One of the best death metal albums ever.
Patrick: Andy gave me this list originally in what seemed to be, and he can pipe in as he is wont to do, an order of his perception of what I would enjoy the least to what I would enjoy the most. I guess I get that strategy, end on a high note or whatever. I was really dreading this exercise for the first few albums because they fucking sucked but this was the first one where I was like “I think there is something here for me.” I like Swedish metal, I think the Boss HM-2 pedal sounds good, and I like the vocal stylings. This album was Good but not as Great as some of the others here. I might check out some more (Andy: Side note, this is my favorite from the ones Patrick reviewed).
Decide - Decide
Andy: Just another chapter in the “Florida is the Death Metal Capital of the World” book. I love the vocals here. They’re so raw, so evil sounding. Death Metal in this era seemed to love blood and gore and such so its nice when we can get back to good ol’ Satanic lyrics. Riffs here go as hard as any. Thrashy and fast and furious. Great use of solos. A death metal classic for a damn good reason.
Patrick: My favorite record here. Maybe my favorite first listen of a death metal record. Glen Benton seems to be uhh a complicated individual (Andy: you don’t burn inverted crosses on your forehead?) but man do his vocals fucking rock. I love the tone of them. I really can’t describe what he’s doing but it feels unique in a genre that doesn’t necessarily always innovate. It’s so rare that Andy gives me a record with a 100% approval rate of Songs That Are Sick. I am so, so excited to check out some more.
Autopsy - Mental Funeral
Andy: I don’t know a good way to explain why but Mental Funeral always felt like the death metal equivalent to what Under a Funeral Moon from Darkthrone is for black metal. Maybe it’s simply the more lo-fi production. Obviously, they’re both in the Peaceville Stable (Patrick: of course, so obvious) but it’s more than that. It has that old-school, ugly, filthy, vibe that Darkthrone has. “In The Grip of Winter” is my favorite track of their discography. Their doom influence is so fun on this record. This is the record I have no idea how Patrick will enjoy.
Patrick: This one surprised me! I have heard of the name of every other band on this list but never heard of Autopsy. My favorite kind of metal tends to be the more sludge metal/doom metal hybrid area that Andy seems to typically avoid, maybe because he doesn’t want to see me happy ever, but Autopsy seems the closest to that vibe of the death metal I’ve listened to. I know there’s stuff like “blackened death metal,” is there a such thing as “doomed death metal?” “Dead doom metal?” Is this anything? If it is, it seems like Autopsy is in that and I’m a fan. I generally don’t always love how uhh fast and frenetic death metal is. Let the riff simmer a bit! Autopsy slows stuff down a bit and makes it deeper and darker and, for that, salutes. Not my favorite overall here but a fun time. I’ll definitely be checking out more.
I wanted to give a little post-mortem (heh dead jokes) here since Andy has given me now like two full months of death metal. I’m a little death metal’d out, to be honest. Or, at least, I am a little tired of the early 90s era of death metal, as death metal from 2022 and 2023 is fucking sick and I’m amped to the gills over it. I’m glad we did this experiment, though. Some of the stuff I’ve heard now is some of my least favorite music of all time but I would be lying if I didn’t say I was extremely grateful to Andy for introducing me to Death, Carcass, Gorguts and Deicide and, if we throw it back a few years, stuff like Morbid Angel and Entombed, as well. I love my friend and I maybe like death metal. However, I am begging him to move on and find a new slant with this newsletter. Did you like this? Did you enjoy this journey? I hope it was enjoyable. See ya next week.
Andy: Yeah we need to take a little break from death metal. I’ll hit you with some fun, new stuff in the upcoming weeks! Thank you for doing your homework. You’ve passed Intro To Death Metal 101.