The Origin and Evolution of Death Metal

Death metal began in the mid-'80s with Florida band Death, led by the guitarist/vocalist generally credited as the creator of the genre, Chuck Schuldiner.

In its beginning, the style incorporated simple, down-tuned riffing, fast drumming that alternated between the snare and bass drum (known as the “blast beat”) and deep growls about gore and generally violent topics. From its primitive early sound, death metal soon developed into a thriving scene in its home state, with bands such as Morbid Angel and Obituary evolving the primitive topics to lyrics influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and the occult.

Lyrics weren’t the only aspect of the genre that matured. By the start of the '90s, Schuldiner decided to draft a new lineup of skilled musicians to complete his vision of a more complex sound. 1991’s Human, with its changing time signatures and spiraling guitar solos, is generally regarded as the watershed release for technical death metal. Soon fellow Florida acts Atheist and Cynic followed suit, further developing death metal’s acceptance of other genres, especially jazz. Death metal had reached its adolescence.

As more musicians formed bands and crowded the scene, competition increased for bragging rights over who was the fastest, heaviest and most accomplished musician. Albums such as Atheist’s Unquestionable Presence in 1991 served as showcases for the members’ virtuosity and skill at their respective instruments.

The aforementioned band Cynic had an especially progressive view of the sound of its early days. Guitarist/vocalist Paul Masvidal began to feel the effect of growling his way through his band’s increasingly melodic and cleanly played songs. For the band’s 1993 debut, Focus, he sang using an instrument called a vocoder to give his vocals an ethereal, robotic presence.

“Cynic is kind of the direction I want to go in,” said Curtin of his band’s desire to push its abilities. “We got Cruz [vocals] right after we recorded the demo and it freed me up because I was doing these crazy guitar parts and trying to do vocals over them was tough. I’ve been getting into a lot of jazz lately and that’s what I’ve been learning in my lessons at Skip’s.”

Curtin’s willingness to experiment with his band’s sound is reminiscent of the ambition many of the members in the first wave of death metal had, but he wants to incorporate even more innovations.

“I think we purposely write music that we can’t play so we eventually become good enough to pull it off,” said Curtin. “What I’m trying to do is move in the direction of adding improvisation to sections of already written music. It’s quite an interesting idea for metal, because you don’t really find many people doing jammed things because it’s all written stuff. Too long has metal been this rigidly defined structure. In our newer material we’re looking into creating parts of the song where we kind of have a skeleton of what we want to do but we’re jamming.”

Conducting From the Grave’s technically demanding songs require the members to concentrate on playing more than their stage presence. This sound sometimes has made it difficult for Abernathy and his bandmates to connect with their audience.

“The shows we play depend what local band we're with at the time,” said Abernathy. “All the bands we toured with for the first album were hardcore-influenced bands so there was a lot of moshing for them, but not us. I felt like people were watching us with crossed arms, but maybe they were watching us to watch the technicality of what we were doing.”

National Impact and the Big Picture

Despite different opinions about the local metal scene, all three bands agree that touring is not so much about stage presence or competition, but building a following in Sacramento and especially across the nation.

“We find a lot more love out on the road than we do at home and that’s why we do so many shows,” said Barnum. “I think no matter what, as long as you perform well when you play live and put out quality albums, eventually someone’s going to notice and you will get something out of it. You just have to keep working as hard as possible, and even when it’s a bad show you just try to play well and even if you only make three fans, that’s all right. Because those fans will bring back 12 the next time and those 12 will bring back 30. Touring is really hard, especially when you’re losing money.”

The difficulty of stretching one's reputation from a midsized city like Sacramento to gigs in cities and scenes all over America can lead a band to move.

Of the three musicians, Barnum is the only one with a desire to leave. Perhaps his status as the oldest band member interviewed gives him a broader perspective on his career.

“There might be a point in time where I may want to go and do Dismal Lapse somewhere else but probably with different members, unless they wanted to move as well,” said Barnum. “I would like to do that eventually and I can transfer my school and do all that kind of stuff. And there’s are culinary campuses in other cities.”

Curtin and Abernathy are content to stay in town for stability and to strengthen their following.

“It’s a great scene and we love playing locally, so we will stay here and make changes when we need to,” said Curtin.

Abernathy echoed this sentiment, claiming, “We are definitely not planning on leaving any time soon. Sacramento is our home and we love it.”

All three bands may be at different stages of their careers, but their respective futures look positive. Malevolent is on the cusp of its first big break, preparing to shop around its soon-to-be-repackaged demo to numerous starter labels. Dismal Lapse is looking to go from where Malevolent will likely be in a few months to where Conducting From the Grave is currently, Barnum excitedly mentioning his band’s CD release show the day after Christmas at The Boardwalk as the beginning of a new era for them.

Though Abernathy and his bandmates are the most successful of the extreme metal bands in town, he speaks about his ideal future as if it is still just out of reach.

“It is my goal to make a living playing music and doing what I love,” said Abernathy. “That’s the way to be happy in life."

Images of Malevolent on Part 1 taken from the band's MySpace.

Images of Dismal Lapse on Part 2 taken from the band's MySpace.

Images of Conducting From the Grave on Part 3 taken from the band's MySpace.