Technical death metal

I’ve found that the guys who don’t know as much theory tend to write things in 4/4 most of the time. The guys who know theory are the ones who end up experimenting more and having music that sounds a little more out there, which I like. The more you know, the more you can mess around. —Alex Webster

Technical death metal is a subgenre of death metal that is focused on technical proficiency in addition to speed and abrasiveness.

Quotes

Technical death metal band Origin.

Death Metal

Coles, T. Death Metal. Bloomsbury Publishing
  • People are in their garage making a demo, and once they get into a studio they're going to want to use the [recording equipment]. It offers all sorts of temptations. Even without trying, you start to become good at your instrument, you're gonna want to do things with it.
  • Though death metal songwriters weren't moving away from the grim subject material, there was a growing desire for clarity, with bands tightening up to better communicate weird or abstract ideas of death, and to court some of the more lucrative commercial possibilities. This more professional approach, forged from recording engineers and musicians working to refine the sound, would be the spark that finally ignited the interest of larger organizations.
    • T Coles, p. 71.
  • Within the confines of a genre there's always a tension: Where do you go with extreme music? What limits are left to explore? One of the reasons I think that extreme metal artists end up producing more technical or listenable work is ultimately it becomes less artistically satisfying to produce [traditional death metal].

Other sources

  • Beyond the blood, guts, screams and pick squeals, death metal has also become a platform for virtuosic musicians to display advanced musical techniques and challenging lyrics.
  • There's only so fast you can play and there's only so heavy you can be without it all sounding the same, or without it all just being a blur, so you know, maybe we've opened up a whole new branch of direction [...] with the music. [...] As long as it keeps expanding and bands keep experimenting and doing different things, it's not going to die out.
  • [Learning music theory] can spur your creativity. I’ve found that the guys who don’t know as much theory tend to write things in 4/4 most of the time. The guys who know theory are the ones who end up experimenting more and having music that sounds a little more out there, which I like. The more you know, the more you can mess around.
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