Death’s Door 2017 // Death Metal’s Year in Review

Scott Murphy
Death's Door
Welcome to the final installment of Death’s Door in the Year of Our Nefarious Overlord 2017! Wipe your feet on the mat, remove that stupid holiday-induced smile from your face, and prepare yourself for ultimate year-end audio brutalization. Because, quite frankly, 2017 was one of the best years for death metal in decades. A bold statement indeed, and thankfully one with plenty of data in the form of amazing records to back it up. The overwhelming number of releases in this dirtiest of metal subgenres, coupled with the breadth of quality releases in each of the branches of the death metal tree, all accumulate to create one of the most impressive lists of death metal albums in a given year since the early 1990s. 2017 presented us with exceptional records at such an alarming clip that it was often a full-time task to keep track of them. Death metal this year was in equal measure mind-numbingly technical, socially forward-thinking, compositionally adventurous, and reverent of the past, generating albums that displayed with full clarity all that makes this music the metal behemoth that it is. What a time to be alive. In our final segment of Death’s Door for the year, we will be highlighting the trends and movements within death metal that we found to be the most significant, as well as our own personal top 15 death metal records on the year. Prepare yourself. Madness awaits.

Death’s Door – July 2017

Heavy Blog
Death's Door
Welcome to our latest edition of Death’s Door. Wipe your feet on the mat, etc. There’s a lot to discuss this month, though frankly, I had my doubts at certain points about whether or not there would be. You see, July tends to be a musical doldrums for yours truly, with lots of leftover releases that didn’t make it into the prime Spring and early Summer release calendar clogging streaming services with mundane/barely serviceable drivel. Obviously, this makes for some not-so-great listening experiences. Thankfully, July pulled through regardless, delivering unto us another fantastic batch of death metal releases that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of 2017. So much so, in fact, that we are foregoing our new tracks section to focus exclusively on the great records released this month. So prepare yourself for some good stuff and thank your lucky stars, because hell hath no fury like a month without good death metal.

With Strange Aeons Even Death May Die: Lovecraft In Metal

Simon Handmaker
Deep Dive
Since its inception, metal has been deeply entwined in the world of both fantasy and horror. The almost-unanimous pick for the genre’s first album, Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut, instantly separated themselves from other bands at the time with their lyrics about unintelligible and dark figures in the night, wizardry, and possibly rock’s first true tip of the hat to the genius author H.P. Lovecraft. With the title of the album’s third track, “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” Black Sabbath not only revolutionized heavy music from a sonic standpoint, but lyrically as well. Bassist/lyricist Geezer Butler’s fascination with black magic and campy horror flicks in the early years of the band could certainly be looked upon as the genesis from which the Lovecraft obsession in metal truly began.