Poll: Which Band in the New Wave of Death Metal Is Your Favorite?
Right now, as a music journalist, all I hear about is death metal. What was once seen as extreme metal’s ultimate meat-and-potatoes genre has now become its most fertile, with a new wave of young, exciting acts taking the scene to unexpected heights. And while there have been some stylistic similarities between a lot of these bands — there’s definitely an emphasis on taking things slower and creepier, which has led to the genre designation cavernous death metal — we appreciate that so many of them bring their own unique flavor to this style of music, which is what the genre’s forefathers were doing back in the day.
My general reaction to this phenomenon is, Awesome! All of them, awesome! As a death metal fan, having watched for years as everyone rolled their eyes at gory murder music in favor of whatever haircut-based Satanic dandies are posing fashionably on the cover of European magazines that week, having a bunch of heshers in four-sided longsleeves become the flavor of the month is rad as hell. My cup runneth over with maggots and offal, and I’m stoked for it.
But, as I’ve stated many times before, I’m old as fuck. Of course I like all this music, because I’m excited to enjoy myself as much as possible before stomach cancer or a weed-related industrial accident takes my pathetic life.
But I’m sure other fans out there, especially younger fans, have modern death metal bands they specifically like or dislike, artists whose differences they consider very important even though all I see are cool new bands writing killer tunes about stomping zombies and Elizabeth Bathory.
So, for the sake of total coverage, we put together a poll of the bands who we believe to be the current New Wave of Bitchin’ Death Metal or whatever you want to call it. And we want to know: who’s your favorite? Which of these bands do you feel is the genre’s current frontrunner?
This isn’t to pit bands against each other, just to talk about death metal. And if there’s a band we left out, let us know in the comments!
Anyway, here are the 22 bands we decided to include in this poll:
