Florida death metal is a regional scene and stylistic subdivision of death metal. Some of the most significantly pioneering and best-selling death metal acts emerged in Florida, especially in the Tampa Bay area. As a result, Tampa is unofficially known by many death metal fans as the "capital of death metal." The scene coalesced in the mid-1980s through early 1990s around the output of bands such as Death, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Obituary, Six Feet Under, Monstrosity, Atheist, Solstice, Nocturnus and Massacre. The producer Scott Burns and the studio Morrisound Recording were also instrumental in developing and popularizing the Florida scene. Some bands which originated outside of Florida, such as Cannibal Corpse and Malevolent Creation from New York, relocated to the state in order to participate in this burgeoning scene. The Florida bands featured a more technical approach to the evolving death metal sound, a style which spread beyond the confines of the state, and some were instrumental in creating the progressive death metal subgenre. The death metal genre as a whole, including the Florida scene, declined in popularity in the second half of the 1990s, but many bands within the Florida scene persisted and the scene resurged in popularity in subsequent decades. Although the scene attracted more media attention, it continued to be underground due to its extreme nature.
Characteristics
Features of death metal Death metal is an extreme sub-genre of heavy metal music that features fast, distorted, down-tuned, and sometimes palm-muted guitar instrumentation, growled and screamed vocals, and hyper-fast, blast beat drumming. Death metal lyrics typically feature graphic, sometimes pornographic and misogynistic, themes of violence, gore, disease, and death;; ; ; Satanic, blasphemous, and anti-Christian content;; or, to a lesser extent, war, apocalypse, social and philosophical concerns,; and esotericism and spiritualism.
The Florida scene was key in the genre's development, with the extremely fast, machine gun-like blast-beats and low, nearly unintelligible vocals of Florida bands helping distinguish death metal from its roots in thrash metal. Through the work of producers such as Scott Burns, the raw, primitive sound of early bands transformed into a thicker, more brutal sound. Obituary and Malevolent Creation introduced groove to the genre, while the song "Imperial Doom" by Monstrosity inspired the more complex technical direction the scene would take. Chris Barnes of Cannibal Corpse, which re-located from Buffalo, New York to Tampa in 1990, and Glen Benton of Deicide also influenced the development of the death growl. The production values from Burns often focused on instrumentals rather than the voice, so the vocalists would chiefly use their voice for percussive and instrumental effect. For instance, Obituary's vocalist John Tardy said that "if I couldn't come up with the words to go along with the song, I'd just kinda make something up and just fill in something that wasn't maybe a word, but it sounded good and fit in the song."
Particular traits of the Florida scene In addition to its contributions to core death metal traits, the Florida style includes additional unique aspects. Generally, guitar tunings are not dropped as low as in other death metal styles, and the playing is considered by many to be tighter, clearer, and more precise. The guitar playing is often more technical than that of other death metal variants. Professor Michelle Phillipov explains that death metal songs usually are constructed as a series of riffs, with each riff section added onto the next. The Florida style takes this further, and juxtaposes different riffs in jarring succession. For instance, the Obituary song "Deadly Intentions" (1989) switches between six different riffs, played variously at normal time, half-time, and double-time. The song lacks a verse-chorus structure, and before any riff section is repeated, the five others are played, and the tempo accelerated or decelerated throughout. Similar is Morbid Angel's "Maze of Torment" (1989), which alternates between "muscular, 'headbanging' riffs" and extended blast beats, off-balancing the rhythm's center. The intensity of the riffing often results in the vocals and instruments mixing into a singular blocks of sound, making it difficult for listeners to anticipate sectional transitions.
Obituary frequently plays moving power chords in tritones using inversions. These riffs are often based on E Phrygian, except the 3 and a ♭5 are added before the riff repeats. A syncopated rhythm with chord changes consisting of two punctuated quarter-notes and one regular quarter-note is typical of many Obituary songs. Sometimes the riff is played with open chords, sometimes combined with tremolo picking "where the notes change on the 'and' of beat 2 and beat 4." On slower songs, the E Phrygian is played except with a natural 2 in the last measure. The power chords are inverted to allow the chord to be played on the fifth string and retain a thick sound on the sixth. Use of a fourth interval instead of a fifth adds a level of dissonance. A simple rhythm that alternates between sixteenth-notes and eighth-notes is also common for the band.;
One of the frequently applied techniques of Morbid Angel is using only a few power chords and octave dyads for rhythmic accents. A typical riff for the band is palm-muted tremolo-picked sixteenth-notes at high speed (for example, 210 beats per minute). The riff stays on each tremolo-picked section for a couple beats, creating a rather static feeling, particularly so when combined with fast double-bass drum and snare that accents the power chords and dyads. Slower examples of signature Morbid Angel riffs comprise octaves, power chords, and palm-muted single-notes. The harmonic scale is E minor with some additional chromatic notes. Typically the 3 is generally minor and the ♭2 at the end of the last measure adds a Phrygian component to the sound. The phrasing is key to these riffs – the dyads are drawn out longer and the first dyad is slid into from a half-step below. Morbid Angel was among the first extreme metal bands to play these octaves in slow riffs and thus add an eerie quality to the music. Another trademark feature of Trey Azagthoth's playing style is using slides on the chromatic power chords to create a slurry effect.
Early albums by Death commonly featured rhythmic accents, held quarter-note power chords, and tremolo picking. Faster riffs on earlier recordings typically played two major thirds a half-step apart. Very typical riffs from that era are melodic major thirds based on A–C♯ and G♯–B♯ intervals which are split by a short sixteenth-note burst on the sixth string. Moving toward an F♯5, the figure begins the major third movement on the 5 of the power chord and then goes a half-step down as it is played against an insistent recurring F♯. Another signature pattern is a tremolo with rhythmic eighth-note accents on the 5 of the power chord of the moment: F♯ accents B5, A accents D5, G♯ accents C♯5, and E♯ accents A♯5.
Early output by Deicide frequently utilized riffs with a figure that was always "a descending minor second followed by a descending major third." The guitar duo in the band at the time, Eric and Brian Hoffman, would move different chromatic patterns to different string sets using the same frets. They favored rhythmic displacement, especially in tremolo picked riffs.
As the Florida scene advanced into the 1990s, many bands displayed increasing technical progression in their music. For instance, on the albums Spiritual Healing (1990) and Human (1991), Death, under the direction of its sole consistent member, Chuck Schuldiner, began playing more melodic guitar lines and increasingly complex tempo changes as well as more refined songwriting and lyrics.; Human, in particular, showcased jazz-influenced guitar work and polyrhythmic drumming, courtesy of respective Cynic members Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinart. In 1990, the band Nocturnus released The Key, which featured science fiction lyrics and the use of keyboard.; ; ; Other Florida bands adopted even more technical and progressive approaches to death metal. For example, Atheist, formed in 1984 in Sarasota, and Cynic, formed in 1987 in Miami, both matured from their thrash and death metal roots into highly technical, jazz-style progressive death metal artists, with Cynic's work occasionally even bordering on jazz fusion.;
Violence at early concerts Early concerts often featured gore and violence both from musicians and among audiences. The frontman of Nasty Savage, "Nasty" Ronnie Galletti, engaged in various antics such as smashing televisions on-stage, an activity that would leave him covered in blood.; Morbid Angel likewise utilized gruesome stage performances such as cutting themselves.; This behavior extended beyond concerts. Kelly Shaefer of Atheist recalls when he once encountered the members of Morbid Angel backstage "sitting around a chalice, cutting themselves and bleeding into the cup. I thought, That's fuckin' nuts. We played crazy music, but we didn't roll like that." Shaefer also recalls violent incidents from mosh pits: "I saw someone get their eye poked out of the socket. The eyeball wasn't hanging out, it was pushed out to the side and the guy stayed in the pit with that fucked-up eye. I saw another guy get his ear half ripped off from the top. The whole top of it was flopping down from his head." The band Deicide, formed under the name Amon in 1987, would fill mannequins and buckets with rotten organs acquired from local butchers and then spill the contents into the audience. Vocalist Glen Benton burnt an inverted cross into his forehead to advertise the vehemently anti-Christian stance of the band. Benton would also join in the violence in the audience. For instance, at one concert he "made this armband with .308 Spitzer head [bullets] on it, and went through the crowd sticking that thing into people's backs. At the end of the night there were just a bunch of screws sticking out of the thing where all the bullet heads fell off the armbands. And there were all these people walking around with big blood spike marks on their backs."
History Beginnings (1982–1988)
Death metal emerged as a genre during the mid-1980s, primarily out of thrash metal. In the early- to mid-1980s, the European bands Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost (and its predecessor Hellhammer), Sodom, Destruction, and Kreator performed a more extreme style of heavy metal music that set sonic and lyrical templates for the thrash, black, and death metal genres.; ; ; ; The American band Slayer also influenced what would become death metal, featuring graphic lyrics dealing with death, dismemberment, war, and the horrors of hell.; ; However, the California band Possessed, which formed in 1983, is generally considered to have released first true death metal recording, Seven Churches, in 1985.; Within the state of Florida, the band Savatage, formed in 1978 in Tarpon Springs as Avatar, was highly influential on local aspiring musicians.; ; ; Later known for progressive and symphonic metal, at the time it performed a mixture of traditional heavy metal with speed, thrash, death, and power metal.; ; ; ; Morrisound Recording, founded in 1981 in Tampa, picked up Avatar and released the band's debut album, City Beneath the Surface, in 1982. Tom Morris, co-owner of Morrisound, states that his studio attempted to emulate the production values of fellow Metal Blade bands Metallica and Slayer. "Those albums had heavy production, and we were like, 'We should try that'".