About Technical Death Metal
A hard-and-fast rule in Death Metal aesthetics is that the more technical the music, the less sophisticated the logo. This is exemplified in Technical Death Metal, a genre whose musicians and artists mix "fast, virtuosic guitar riffs and solos of varying tempos and time signature changes with prevalent drumming and frequent blast beats."1 It's like they opt to convey an impression of modesty (or perhaps false modesty), often leading to conversations like this:
- "I can play with my eyes closed!"
- "Cool! But did you also have to do that logo with your eyes closed?"
It is worthwhile pointing out here that you can often place a band in this genre somewhere in time just by looking at the band's logo. In the 1990s and before, Tech Death bands had "analogously" hand-drawn logos; post-2000s, these logos have been done mostly digitally -- and it shows.
Bands to check out: Technical Death Metal
- Necrophagist
- Nile
- Origin
1990s Tech Death
Logo-wise, it's usually easy to recognize 1990s bands playing in this genre. They often have what looks like a Black Metal logo, except it's not -- it's not nearly as sophisticated.
If they're still active to this day, they now probably have a type-only logo, one that is most likely superimposed over an earlier "Black Metal-like" logo.
Bands to check out: 1990s Tech Death
- Cryptopsy
- Pestilence
- Spawn of Possession
Related genres
References
[1] M. Unger. Sound, Symbol, Sociality: The Aesthetic Experience of Extreme Metal Music, p. 20, 2016.