About Death Metal
Death Metal at large is one of the major "mainstream" modes of Extreme Metal. It's typically characterized by low-tuned, heavily distorted guitars, aggressive, thumping drumming (featuring double-kicks and blast-beats), deep growling vocals, abrupt and complex changes in tempo and time signature ... As a genre, it is very broad, encompassing a great deal of diversity. Indeed, it has spawned several subgenres since its inception in the mid- to late-1980s, all with their own specific iconography.
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As a general rule it can be observed that in this genre the letters making up the logos tend to be thick and bold as opposed to, say, the letters making up Black Metal logos. The latter tend to be thin and sometimes somewhat shaky. In that these logos strikingly resemble the fans of these respective genres who are generally respectively heavy set characters and lanky, out-of-sorts pushovers.
And, contrary to Thrash Metal logos, Death Metal logos tend to have more "soft" elements. This, too, makes perfect sense. Thrash gives its fans a linear, myopic view on life in general: it's all about alienation and oppression from a threatening, hostile world of authority -- yet it offers nothing helpful in way of unburdening; meanwhile, ironically, Death offers a more rounded approach to life -- offering a safe, routinized way of exploring things that would terrify or disgust most, which enables a cathartic dissipation of everyday's tension.1 (I'm not gonna lie -- I really didn't expect to find a source to kinda back this up.)
Florida Death Metal
When it comes to Death Metal, the Florida Death Metal scene deserves some special attention. Here the bands that emerged in the late-1980s were not so much inspired by the Hardcore movement but rather built on the musical formula established by early-1980s Thrash Metal and the first wave of Black Metal bands. These Florida bands were also lyrically more inspired, expressly refined, dealing with more abstract concepts such as religion, enlightenment, and ecology.
In terms of logo design, it's hard to pinpoint specific characteristics. Perhaps significantly, perhaps coincidentally, I'd say, on the whole, these logos tend to have a "tattoo-like," "hellfirish" quality to them (think here of tribal flames with their scythe-like edges or 1950s-style hotrod flames).
Bands to check out
- Atheist
- Deicide
- Morbid Angel
Related genres
References
[1] M. Phillipov. Ch. 6: The Pleasures of Horror. Death Metal and Music Criticism: Analysis at the Limits, p. 100, 2012. Here, the author cites N.J. Purcell. Death Metal Music: The Passion and Politics of a Subculture, pp. 172 and 185, 2003; M. Dickstein. The Aesthetics of Fright. In B.K. Grant, ed. Plans of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, 1984; and K.F.B. Fletcher and O. Umurhan, ed. Introduction: Where Metal and Classics Meet. Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal, (2020).