Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes.
Building from the musical structure of thrash metal and early black metal, death metal emerged during the mid 1980s. It was mainly inspired by thrash metal and early black metal acts like Slayer, KreaCeltic Frost, and Venom.
Along with the band Death and its frontman Chuck Schuldiner, who is often referred to as "the father of death metal", bands like Possessed, Obituary and Morbid Angel are often considered pioneers of the genre.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, death metal gained more media attention as popular record labels like Earache and Roadrunner began to sign death metal bands at a rapid rate.Since then, death metal has diversified, spawning a variety of subgenres.
