Autopsy "severed survival"

I was around for the birth of death metal.  Not only was I around but I was paying attention.  Through an older hesher at school I was introduced to tape trading.  A culture of people copying and compiling casettes and trading them through the mail.  The older metal head gave me a couple of xeroxed contact lists and a cassette with morbid angel first demo and on the flips side a demo by the band Thantos.  It was my starter kit.  I went full bore: soaping and reusing postage stamps, copying covers at school when no one was in the office and stealing cassette tapes from my sister whenever possible.  I was introduced to a lot of awesome burgeoning metal bands.  Some destined for great things and some to remain in obscurity.  To quote a friend of mine: "I didn't know music could get this heavy!"  I received a demo by the band #autopsy during this time.  It was one of my favorites, when their full length was finally released it had different cover art than this reissue.  It had zombie surgeons peering down at the viewer who was the "patient" under medical lights.  Man, I loved that cover.  Their sludgey death metal still gets the hair to stand up on my neck.  Whenever people wax about "old-school " this is the stuff that I think of.  I think about all the loving effort and work that went into getting our hands on this stuff. It made the music that much cooler.

Morbid Angel "gateways to annihilation "

I was working at a silk screen print shop in 2000.  One of my Co workers became a good friend, we bonded over gaming and death metal.  While my musical path had strayed from metal for years this guy held the course.  A death metal aficionado if ever there was one.  Early on in our friendship he turned me on to Immolation and re-introduced me to #morbidangel .  He made me a mix CD of his favorite Morbid Angel tracks and I listened to it intensely.  I started purchasing their discography and while doing this they released this disc "gateways to annihilation" which actually became my favorite album in their discography.  Side note: it was at this time I realised the band were titling their releases in alphabetical order "altars of madness", "blessed are the sick", "covenent", "domination", "entangled in chaos", "formulas fatal to the flesh" and then this album.  I revealed my discovery to my buddy and we both reveled in the trivia. This record is my favorite in their solid body of work up to this point because of it's doom-laden tempos.   The band shifted into low gear for this release and adds a dimension to their brand of death metal.  From field recordings of chipping crickets to paced double bass drum attacks (Pete Sandoval is a death metal drumming pioneer) and the great Dan Seagrave album cover of a Lovecraftian landscape this is upper echelon type death metal. While purists may prefer their faster paced albums the pace here weights the album in a delicious way. I'm going to assume my buddy will have a different opinion if and when he reads this.  I love geek debates of fetishized interests and welcome his case for what I'm assuming will be a different favorite release.

Cannibal Corpse "the bleeding"

Death metal has infiltrated all the heavy genres by now. It's musical excesses have tainted them all and the genres name is known to anyone with a passing interest in hard rock even if they can't quite identify it's sound. Buffalo was a major hub in the burgeoning death metal work in the late '80s and early '90s. Those of us weened on the "new wave of British heavy metal" and thrash here got heavily into tape trading. Mailing and receiving dubbed cassettes of bands demos and albums that were mostly 5th generation and piss poor sound quality. It was a movement and I had a part in it. One of my biggest music collecting regrets is letting that box of tapes go.
Anyone from this scene will share similar stories: stealing your parents beer and watching a bootlegged copy of the "faces of death" vhs, burdening your boom boxes antenna with 5 lbs of aluminum foil trying to hear the Thursday metal show on buff state's grossly under powered college radio station and finding cannibal corpse's first demo. I love feeling superior to young metal and hardcore fans because of all of this.
#cannibalcorpse are the world's biggest death metal band. They came from here and this album contains my all time favorite death metal song "stripped, raped and strangled" as a note, I always thought I'd be the "cool" dad. I admit: I hide these discs from my kids. They are on the top shelf of my Wall out of little fingers reach. When I was organizing the collection my young son found the "tomb of the mutilated" cover (Google it) and I squirmed as he asked me about it. In some ways that made me adore death metal even more. It's not for everyone, it should not be. That exclusivity makes me all snobby warm inside my guts.