Quote:
Originally Posted by Briks
Too late, I've already tried Xysma now. Might write something about them later.
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I forget how you feel about death metal in general, but Carcass is pretty much required listening if you're exploring extreme metal. Honestly though, if you're still somewhat new then it might make sense to go backwards with their catalog, as they grew more accessible as time went on, though the quality always remained high. I'd steer clear of their last pre-reunion album though,
Swan Song, as it's pretty dull.
But
Heartwork would be a brilliant place to start. Along with At the Gates'
Slaughter of the Soul (another piece of required listening), it pretty much invented melodic death metal, while being one of, if not the most brutal albums of the genre. Very few melodic death metal albums actually qualify as extreme metal, but that one most certainly does.
The one before that,
Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious, was a pretty straight-up death metal album, though a lot of the lead guitar shows where they would go with
Heartwork, and is probably the album that I hear praised as their best the most often, although all four of their first albums get called that by various camps. Definitely one of the best death metal albums you'll ever hear, while still being fairly accessible.
I haven't listened to as much of their two earlier albums, which were their grindcore ones (Though the second,
Symphonies of Sickness, shows signs of moving towards death metal.) Those are some really brutal albums. That was before they got Michael Amott on lead guitar (the guy behind Arch Enemy these days), and he was the one who really seemed to be pushing them in a more melodic direction. I'd say if you're still getting used to extreme metal then you'd be better off listening to
Symphonies first, as the production on their first,
Reek of Putrefaction, has absolutely abysmal production. The band weren't even going for bad production, it just sort of happened. I think the recordings somehow got ****ed up somewhere in between recording and releasing the album and there just wasn't enough time and money to do anything about it. Still, if you can dig that kind of early, primitive grindcore, like early Napalm Death, it's a pretty great album.