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Heavy Metal Thunder Brutal Death Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Speed Metal Thrash Metal Death Metal Brutal Death Metal

Brutal Death Metal

The heavy end of the heavy end — as low, as fast and as blunt as the format allows, and quite knowingly absurd.

Active years
1990 – present
Origin
USA
Family
Death Metal
Bands here
18

Before you press play

Explicit content

This is the most graphic material anywhere on this site — Devourment, Cephalotripsy and Cannibal Corpse's early sleeves are well past what most people who like death metal want to hear. Start almost anywhere else.

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Destroy the Opposition Dying Fetus, 2000 The landmark

    The most musical band in the most extreme genre. There are actual grooves here, and John Gallagher's riffs would work at half the speed, which is more than can be said for most of what follows.

    Listen to Destroy the Opposition

  2. Monolith of Inhumanity Cattle Decapitation, 2012

    The only record here with tunes. Travis Ryan sings as well as growls, the lyrics are about ecological collapse rather than gore, and it is the one to hand somebody first.

    Listen to Monolith of Inhumanity

  3. Tomb of the Mutilated Cannibal Corpse, 1992

    The most notorious album sleeve in metal and a considerably better record than its reputation suggests. Banned in several countries, which the band have dined out on ever since.

    Listen to Tomb of the Mutilated

  4. Molesting the Decapitated Devourment, 1999

    The deep end of the deep end. Slam invented in one record: tempo halved, tuning dropped past the point of pitch, and a vocal that is not really a vocal. Almost nobody likes this the first time.

    Listen to Molesting the Decapitated

What it sounds like

Lower, faster and blunter than death metal proper, and pursued with total commitment. Guitars are tuned as far down as they will go, the drumming is at maximum for most of the song, and the vocal has descended from a growl into something sub-verbal — the "pig squeal" lives here. Riffs are simple; the effect comes from density and volume. Nothing is melodic and nothing is subtle. The lyrical content is gore and horror at a level that is clearly meant as spectacle rather than statement, and the whole genre is best understood as an endurance test that its audience finds genuinely funny.

  • Heaviness 5 out of 5
  • Speed 5 out of 5
  • Aggression 5 out of 5
  • Technicality 3 out of 5
  • Darkness 4 out of 5
  • Melody 1 out of 5

Where the name came from

A descriptive intensifier added to 'death metal' to differentiate the most extreme, speed-obsessed, gore-fixated end of the genre. 'Brutal' had been used in metal circles since the 1980s as a term of high praise before being formalised as a sub-genre qualifier in the early 1990s.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Dying Fetus USA
  • Cattle Decapitation USA
  • Cannibal Corpse USA
  • Devourment USA
  • Defeated Sanity Germany

And 13 more

  • Disgorge USA
  • Kraanium Norway
  • Cephalotripsy USA
  • Putrid Pile USA
  • Brodequin USA
  • Death Vomit Indonesia
  • Jasad Indonesia
  • Tengkorak Indonesia
  • Trauma (Indonesia) Indonesia
  • Purgatory Indonesia
  • Vulvodynia South Africa
  • Aborted Belgium
  • Gutslit India

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.