Twenty four bands sit on the table further down this piece. By the end of 1987 those twenty four had put five albums between them. That ratio is the whole decade in one line: the eighties were not short of death metal bands, they were short of anybody willing to press the results, and the lag between a band existing and a band being audible ran to four and five years.
So the roster has to be counted on formation and first recording rather than on release dates, otherwise two thirds of it vanishes. Count it that way and the shape of where the genre came from changes: not two teenagers and an argument, but a slow accumulation of small units in seven countries, most of them unaware of the others for their first two years.
1983 and 1984: the word arrives before the records
Assembled in 1982 in the East Bay around guitarist Mike Torrao and drummer Mike Sus, and given its voice when Jeff Becerra arrived on bass, Possessed spent 1983 doing what every band in that valley did, which was fight for a support slot. What they did in 1984 was different. They posted out a three song demo called Death Metal, and the phrase went into circulation before there was a body of music to attach it to.
A continent's worth of postage away, in Altamonte Springs, a fifteen year old guitarist named Chuck Schuldiner had started Mantas in 1983 with Kam Lee on drums and vocals and Rick Rozz on second guitar. Their Death by Metal demo went out in June 1984, slower and dirtier than anything from California, and the band became Death before the year was out.
The rest of the 1983 intake had nothing to do with either of them. Necrophagia came together in Wellsville, Ohio around Frank Pucci, built out of horror films and no money at all. Paul Speckmann was running Death Strike in Chicago, a band he renamed Master in 1985. Morbid Angel formed in Tampa around Trey Azagthoth and Mike Browning, went through two rejected names, and would not release a legitimate album for six years. Vader started in Olsztyn in 1983 and spent the decade behind a border that made a padded envelope a minor act of smuggling.
Nineteen eighty four added the units that would carry the second half of the decade. Thanatos in Rotterdam, whose Speed Kills demo makes them the oldest death metal band the Netherlands has. Repulsion in Flint, Michigan, under two other names before the good one. Sepultura in Belo Horizonte. Massacre in Tampa, staffed increasingly by men who had just walked out of Death. Executioner in Brandon, four teenagers who would spend five years becoming Obituary. Oblivion in Sarasota, who became R.A.V.A.G.E. and then Atheist. Sadus in Antioch, an hour from Possessed and playing faster than any of them.
1985 and 1986: the roster doubles and the shops notice nothing
Combat released Seven Churches on 4 November 1985 and then the pipeline shut again. Master had an entire album recorded for the same label that year and watched it go into a drawer, where it stayed until 2003. Morbid Angel recorded a complete debut, Abominations of Desolation, in 1986 and refused to put it out. Necrophagia cut Season of the Dead at Aircraft Studios in Pittsburgh across the autumn of 1986. Three finished records, one of them released.
Meanwhile the roster kept growing in places with no scene to grow in. Sarcofago in Belo Horizonte in 1985, playing faster and filthier than the band half of them had just left. Carcass in Liverpool in 1985, assembled out of a hardcore house and a pathology textbook. Immolation in Yonkers in 1986, under the name Rigor Mortis for their first two years. Bolt Thrower in Coventry, Pestilence in Enschede, Terrorizer in Los Angeles, Corpse on the island of Gotland who became Grave, and Morbid in Stockholm, all inside the same eighteen months and not one of them within reach of a contract.
1987: the pivot, and it is a narrow one
Two records did the work. Season of the Dead reached shops on New Renaissance in February 1987, sold almost nothing and broke the band. Scream Bloody Gore followed on Combat on 25 May, made by two men in a Los Angeles studio, and this one was heard. Within a year the method on it had been taken apart and reassembled by bands in six countries who had never met anybody involved.
Nineteen eighty seven is the year the tape network stopped being a rumour and started being a supply chain.
The formation column for 1987 is the longest in the decade and it is heavily clustered, which is the tell. Autopsy in Concord in August, built by Chris Reifert the moment he came off the Death record. Deicide in Tampa under the name Amon. Nocturnus in Tampa, started by Mike Browning after Morbid Angel. Cynic in Miami. Malevolent Creation in Buffalo. Nihilist in Stockholm. Asphyx in the Netherlands. Sadistic Intent in Whittier. Atheist finally settled on its name. Six of those nine formed within an hour's drive of another band on this list, which had not been true of a single entry in 1983.
1988 and 1989: the lag collapses
Now the decade pays out all at once. Cannibal Corpse formed in Buffalo in December 1988 and had a record in shops inside twenty months. Suffocation came together on Long Island the same year. Dismember, Entombed out of the wreckage of Nihilist, Unleashed, Gorefest, Incantation and Gorguts all date from 1988 and 1989, and not one of them waited five years for anything.
Look at what 1989 alone released. Altars of Madness, Slowly We Rot, Severed Survival, Symphonies of Sickness, Realm of Chaos, Beneath the Remains, Consuming Impulse, World Downfall, Horrified. Nine records in twelve months from a genre that had managed five in the preceding six years. Nothing about the music changed that year. The distribution did.
The table, and what the columns show
| Band | Formed | Where | First recording | First album |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Possessed | 1982 | East Bay, California | Death Metal demo, 1984 | 1985 |
| Death, as Mantas | 1983 | Altamonte Springs, Florida | Death by Metal demo, June 1984 | 1987 |
| Necrophagia | 1983 | Wellsville, Ohio | demo, 1985 | 1987 |
| Master, as Death Strike | 1983 | Chicago, Illinois | demo, 1984 | 1990 |
| Morbid Angel | 1983 | Tampa, Florida | demo, 1986 | 1989 |
| Nasty Savage | 1983 | Brandon, Florida | demo, 1984 | 1985 |
| Vader | 1983 | Olsztyn, Poland | demo, 1984 | 1992 |
| Thanatos | 1984 | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Speed Kills demo, 1984 | 1990 |
| Repulsion | 1984 | Flint, Michigan | demo, 1985 | 1989 |
| Sepultura | 1984 | Belo Horizonte, Brazil | split EP, 1985 | 1986 |
| Massacre | 1984 | Tampa, Florida | demo, 1986 | 1991 |
| Obituary, as Executioner | 1984 | Brandon, Florida | demo, 1985 | 1989 |
| Atheist, as Oblivion | 1984 | Sarasota, Florida | demo, 1985 | 1990 |
| Sadus | 1984 | Antioch, California | demo, 1986 | 1988 |
| Sarcofago | 1985 | Belo Horizonte, Brazil | split LP, 1985 | 1987 |
| Carcass | 1985 | Liverpool, England | demo, 1987 | 1988 |
| Immolation, as Rigor Mortis | 1986 | Yonkers, New York | demo, 1987 | 1991 |
| Bolt Thrower | 1986 | Coventry, England | demo, 1986 | 1988 |
| Pestilence | 1986 | Enschede, Netherlands | demo, 1987 | 1988 |
| Terrorizer | 1986 | Los Angeles, California | demo, 1987 | 1989 |
| Autopsy | 1987 | Concord, California | demo, 1987 | 1989 |
| Deicide, as Amon | 1987 | Tampa, Florida | demo, 1987 | 1990 |
| Entombed, as Nihilist | 1987 | Stockholm, Sweden | demo, 1987 | 1990 |
| Cannibal Corpse | 1988 | Buffalo, New York | demo, 1989 | 1990 |
Read the last two columns together and the argument makes itself. A band formed in 1983 waited four to six years for an album. A band formed in 1988 waited two. Nothing in the music accounts for that. What happened is that Earache, Peaceville, Roadrunner, Nuclear Blast, Combat and Century Media all worked out inside the same eighteen months that there was a paying audience, and by 1989 the trade cut the lag open and found six years of finished music inside it.
The geography column tells the second story. The 1983 and 1984 entries are scattered across seven countries with no local scene anywhere, which is exactly why they sound so unlike each other. The 1987 to 1989 entries cluster in four places: Tampa, Stockholm, Buffalo and Long Island. Bands that can hear each other in a room converge. Bands that can only hear each other on a fourth generation cassette do not.
Which is the other half of this decade, and it is where the actual music of the eighties lives. Most of these bands were judged, signed and copied on the strength of tapes that never went near a shop counter, and the best of those tapes are still better than the albums that followed them. Those are the Demos That Built Death Metal Before the Albums Did.
