Special Report
DECIBEL examines the recent resurgence of OLD-SCHOOL DEATH METAL and why brand new bands are killing like it's 1990
A few months ago, a close friend of mine said, “Death metal is starting to rule again.” “When did it ever stop?” I replied. A thousand reasons and an equal amount of bands later, we still weren’t speaking the same language. This is fucking death metal, not calculus or an analysis of Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Dread. Having supported death metal and the many variations thereof for what seems like an eternity, it should be accepted practice that death metal need not be stratified, but accepted as an art form regardless of style or influence. One brutal lump sum.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. What my dear hesher colleague was referring to—only after I name-dropped Bloodbath, Hooded Menace and Hail of Bullets—was old-school death metal. Or OSDM. After scouring through a handful of MySpace tribute pages to God Macabre, Eternal Darkness and Autopsy, the left hand path, inevitably, lead to hordes of new jack death metal bands genuinely vibing off the classics. These bands weren’t kids with slanty haircuts giving one-off salutes to Entombed and Dismember between ADHD, popcorn-core freakouts. This throwback was real.
Said friend of mine and I traded a few more phone calls, emails and MySpace links. New old-school death metal was everywhere. From Sweden and Germany to Australia and the U.S., NOSDM (New Old-School Death Metal) was interlinked and on the move. Did we just uncover a scene within a scene? The music sounded like 1990. Or thereabouts. The logos resembled it. The merchandise reflected the days when bands printed all kinds of sick shit on white T-shirts. And longsleeves required a minimum of 10 logos on each arm. Remember those? Dumbfounded, I called up dB EIC Mudrian and said, “Dude, do you know what’s going on here?” “No, but I support it,” he responded. With Albert’s blessing and a free pass to insanity, what I found was a reaction to the clinical and technical. To these bands, death metal’s soul had been ripped apart—as much by sweep arpeggios, gravity blasts and Pro Tools as over-saturation, modernization and dehumanization. Their answer to the problem wasn’t to complain like a bunch of whiny Internet bitches, but to respond by bringing back the horror, grit and uncertainty of true death metal. In short, they wanted to descend into the deep, dark abyss, just like their forebears. If you’re along for the ride, then be prepared for nine levels of awesome. If not, fuck off. So, yeah, my friend was right: Death metal is starting to rule again.
New Death… the Old Way
“We are going back to the ‘older ways’ of the late ’80s and early ’90s when looking for our inspiration,” asserts bassist Dave Wagner of New Jersey’s Funebrarum. “The bands back then knew how to create an atmosphere on top of coming up with the craziest and most brutal shit. Nowadays, people seem to be wrapped up in how technically they can play or how low the vocals can get or how many slam parts they can put in a song. For us, death metal is all about creating a chilling and morbid atmosphere.”
Likewise for Sweden’s Vanhelgd and California’s Deathevokation. Both bands have issued full-lengths (2008’s Cult of Lazarus and 2007’s The Chalice of Ages, respectively) of vintage morbid death. Vanhelgd list Death, Entombed, Cathedral and Paradise Lost as influences, while Deathevokation’s inspiration comes not from a single DM legend, but the year 1990. To drill the point home, Deathevokation’s website looks and navigates like a fanzine.
“Our inspiration derives quite clearly from bands who were active in between 1988 and ’92,” says Vanhelgd guitarist/vocalist Jimmy Johansson. “Why not call it old-school?” Deathevokation’s Götz Bombenhagel, a German transplant and model airplane importer, couldn’t agree more with Johansson’s assessment. Yet, to the La Jolla, CA-based quartet, old-school—or “Alte Schule,” as Bombenhagel calls it—has more than a single definition. “Alte Schule” is a way of life.
“On the surface, [it] is plain German for ‘old-school,’ but the German term itself indeed implies so much more: cordiality, respectfulness, chivalry!” he reveals. “In Germany, thrash was the music of the lower class. It was all about brotherhood, anti-racism, friendship, headbanging and beers. And plenty of it. So was the new death metal scene. Sure, love has a bad memory, but there were no fights, no one was trying to alpha-male anyone, no one was a being a trollish smartass and, sure enough, no one ever talked about ‘that drummer being the fastest’ or ‘that bassist being better than the band’s guitarist.’ It was all about the music. The art as a whole.”
While the passion of Wagner and Bombenhagel are obvious, the whos, hows and wheres of NOSDM aren’t. Swedish supergroup Bloodbath could’ve gotten the ball rolling on 2000’s Breeding Death EP. Just as likely are underground heroes Nominon, whose 1999 debut Diabolical Bloodshed all but vanished into obscurity until Deathgasm Records re-released it last year. Regardless of which band is responsible or what year the old-school revival officially started, the waves of buzzsaw guitar are about to crash hard.
“I have always wanted to play death metal this way,” Vanhelgd vocalist/guitarist Mattias Frisk states. “I remember that when we started our first band [Ceremonial Execution], we were a mix of punk and death. Vanhelgd have actually adopted some unused stuff from Ceremonial Execution. But there was always some kind of impulse. Mine started when I really fell for Autopsy a couple a years ago.”
As Tommy Parkkonen of Gothenburg’s Chronic Torment screams, “Old death style is the blood!”
Analog to Digital Death: the “Underground” Online
In the ’80s and well into the late ’90s, tape trading was one way of spreading the gospel. This physical connection, affectionately known as “the Underground Scene” amongst bands, journalists and fans, was a network—tight in certain circles, loose in others—where music was shared at the pace of post offices worldwide. Almost every band signed to a label pre-Internet traded music. The simple action of duping music to a cassette was nearly as important to answering zine interviews or gigging locally. The kids who eventually formed Entombed, Dismember and Unleashed would’ve never heard Death, Repulsion or Autopsy had it not been for the transatlantic flights of dubbed cassettes. The same applies to the insatiable appetite of bands and scensters shuttling the newest European death to friends and friends of friends. By no means was tape trading exclusive to the States, Scandinavia and all points in-between—death metal was global.
“To me, there was no greater feeling in the world than getting a cool package in the mail full of concert bootlegs on VHS tapes, dubbed off demos and fliers,” Wagner remembers. “I always looked forward to seeing just what kind of crazy and obscure stuff I could get my hands on. I got turned on to a lot of great stuff via tape trading, and it was also fun for me to try to do the same and get people into stuff that I was digging. It also helped me get the word out about the music I was doing myself. Plus, even if you never met the people you were trading tapes with face to face, you could build some pretty amazing friendships.”
The point of origin was, more often than not, the band. From there, music would spread—Dissection’s Storm of the Light’s Bane was shared voraciously before it hit retail stores in 1995, for example—until it was replaced by the another killer demo, 7-inch or album. Death metallers exchanged music across borders, age groups, ethnicities and income levels long before Shawn Fanning programmed P2P monster Napster in his Northeastern University dorm room.
Fast forward a few years. Replacing the old analog “Underground Scene” is the new digital “Underground Scene.” That’d be social networking site MySpace.
MySpace, also home to 13-year-old girls and 45-year-old men posing as 15-year-old boys, is vital. The MySpace model is empowering for bands with few resources. It’s free, easy to use and brandable. Money originally used for postage can now be put towards t-shirts or more gear. Time spent waiting for the mailman can be more efficiently used to practice Carcass riffs or Nicke Andersson-like drum fills. More importantly, heavy and foul metal is accessible to anyone willing to point and click. Really, MySpace allows bands, fans and journalists the opportunity to connect just like the old dudes used to. It’s just not as time-consuming or as bucolic.
“MySpace has been tremendously important to Vanhelgd,” cheers Frisk. “We put up some rehearsal songs that Crematorium Records liked, and [they] wanted us to record an album. It’s also almost the only connection we got with the scene at all. I think it’s great that we can have contact with like-minded people in South Africa, Mexico, [the] U.S.A, Greece and so on.”
Bombenhagel concurs, then politely counters. “MySpace has a lot of value,” he says, “but I am of no value to MySpace. It is just not my thing. I am the kind of guy who likes to socialize, but hates to have mediated communication. I am a face-to-face, beer-to-beer kinda man.”
Sounds of Death: How They Do It
Leif Cuzner might be the greatest guitarist ever to come out of Sweden. He’s no Malmsteen, but Cuzner discovered one of the fattest, dirtiest guitar sounds to burp out of an amp. The combination of a Boss Heavy Metal pedal, all knobs maxed, and a Gibson guitar defined the Stockholm Sound. As enticing as it was, replicating Left Hand Path or Like an Ever Flowing Stream didn’t appeal to any of the bands interviewed. Vanhelgd’s Frisk immediately shot down the idea of copying Cuzner’s groundbreaking sound on Cult of Lazarus. “We used a Peavey bass amplifier and Big Muff pedal for the guitars. The sound is just as fucked up and shitty. It’s horrible in some ways and brutal in others.”
“It took me three years to find my sound,” admits Bombenhagel. “Just like with my voice, I am looking for that smooth grit in the guitars that makes Devo sound the way it does. And the second guitar is just as important for the overall sound as mine. [I use] Engl Powerball MkI, tubes only. And then the plainest guitar wiring known to man. I only have an on/off switch for my ’80s EMG 81 on my guitar. No volume, no control knobs. Nothing.”
“In our earlier days, we were particularly fixated on getting a guitar sound akin to the ‘Sunlight Studio Sound’ or like that of Urban Skytt of Crematory,” Wagner confesses. “As the years have gone by, we have kind of dropped this obsession and are more interested in finding our own path to the ultimate chainsaw head-splitter of a guitar tone!”
Record Labels: Feel the Ick
“Everything from their logos to the way they design their shirts is like late ’80s, early ’90s style,” points out Gerardo Martinez, label manager for Nuclear Blast Records. “They look at the stuff that’s out there now and they just don’t like or aren’t inspired by it. They go back. It proves the point—this music is forever. They’re picking the best elements from those bands. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. Again, hopefully, it stays. There’s going to be some cool music made by 17-, 18-year-old kids.”
For now, the average age of the bands interviewed is closer to 29. But give NOSDM a few years and a few bottles of luck. The murky, cavernous wall of guitars and verse-chorus-verse songwriting may eventually trickle down to neo-thrashers looking for a heavier fix. The transition from Testament to Sepultura to Death is just as logical as Warbringer to Municipal Waste to Chronic Torment.
“From a business view, it doesn’t make sense,” says Monte Connor, Senior Vice President of A&R for Roadrunner Records. Connor would know. He signed Deicide, Obituary and Sepultura before they were gods. “On one hand, you want to sign cool shit, but these bands have to sell. We have to walk a fine line here. From a neo-death point of view, it’s not happening from a business perspective. None of these bands sell records. Municipal Waste sells like 10,000 records. I doubt any of these bands will sell more than that.”
Yet, for every Connor (i.e., the major label guy with street cred), there’s a Martinez and Calvin Chiang, A&R manager for Singapore’s Pulverised Records. They’re always on the lookout for bands with solid songwriting chops, a good, atavistic vibe and a longsleeve or two of influences. Unlike Roadrunner, Nuclear Blast and Pulverised, the label that discovered Swedish powerhouse Amon Amarth, have a little more wiggle room. In fact, Martinez and Chiang predict growth in old-school death, while Connor is of the opinion that without innovation—he thinks Job for a Cowboy and Suicide Silence are trailblazers—NOSDM is doomed to fail.
“I am sure that once the old-school death metal trend gets bigger, labels will start picking up bands playing this genre,” asserts Chiang. “Old-school death metal has always been around, but it just needs to get hyped up on a larger scale.”
Nuclear Blast is already in negotiations with an undisclosed NOSDM outfit, confirms Martinez. “If you would’ve asked me two years ago, I would’ve said, ‘No way!’ Times change. There’s definitely room for bands like Hail of Bullets. Three or four years ago, that band wouldn’t have gotten a record deal. People are paying attention to death metal again.”
But Deathevokation, Funebrarum, Vanhelgd and Chronic Torment aren’t too concerned that their brand of noise and evil will attract a label like Martinez’s. In fact, the dudes in Chronic Torment give away their music on their website and at music festivals. “So far, we have given away 3,000 records for free,” Parkkonen smiles. “We are recording, producing, mixing, printing and making all the merchandise out our own pockets. Our wallets are getting a bit lighter every year, but it’s worth it. Every year we travel to Wacken Open Air and give away copies of our latest record.”
“The only goal I’ve ever had is to enjoy myself,” Vanhelgd’s Björn Andersson says. “Playing music I like—that’s what music is about. In every aspect. All labels have had their first release. And I see no harm if labels support the bands they really dig. I really don’t care though… so far, so good!”
Bombenhagel, on the other hand, has zero inclination to transfer Deathevokation from Spanish label Xtreem Music to anywhere else. “In no form or shape, ever. Unless a regular fan wins the lottery, buys the owners a few more Porsches and runs it from the heart. Not the balance sheets.”
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