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| - Technical death metal is a more complex subgenre of Death Metal. With complex rhythms, riffs and song structures.
- Technical death metal and progressive death metal are subgenres of Death Metal that infuse the (in)famous assaulting musical brutality of the genre with the technicality and elaborate musical structures of Progressive Metal. The songs tend to be very complex, and often include influences from other genres, such as jazz or classical music; the result is a highly cerebral musical style that rewards close and repeated listening, without surrendering the unrelenting musical aggression Death Metal is known for.
* Progressive: Opeth
* Technical: Decapitated
- Technical death metal (sometimes called tech-death, progressive death metal) is a musical subgenre of death metal that focuses on complex rhythms, riffs and song structures. Technical experimentation in death metal began in the late 1980s and early 1990s by bands such as Death, Atheist and Cynic. In 1990, Nocturnus released their debut album, The Key, which was followed by Sarcófago's third album, The Laws of Scourge, featuring a change in their musical style from black metal/thrash metal to technical death metal. Atheist's second album, Unquestionable Presence; Pestilence's third album, Testimony of the Ancients; and Death's fourth album, Human, were all released the very next year. Human and later Death albums have proven especially influential on later '90s technical death metal bands.
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| abstract
| - Technical death metal (sometimes called tech-death, progressive death metal) is a musical subgenre of death metal that focuses on complex rhythms, riffs and song structures. Technical experimentation in death metal began in the late 1980s and early 1990s by bands such as Death, Atheist and Cynic. In 1990, Nocturnus released their debut album, The Key, which was followed by Sarcófago's third album, The Laws of Scourge, featuring a change in their musical style from black metal/thrash metal to technical death metal. Atheist's second album, Unquestionable Presence; Pestilence's third album, Testimony of the Ancients; and Death's fourth album, Human, were all released the very next year. Human and later Death albums have proven especially influential on later '90s technical death metal bands. In 1991, New York's grindcore-influenced Suffocation released their debut album Effigy of the Forgotten, which focused on pairing speed and brutality with a "sophisticated" sense of songwriting. The album subsequently became groundbreaking in the genre. Swedish band Edge of Sanity would move on to a more progressive and melodic style with their albums The Spectral Sorrows and Purgatory Afterglow, but when the band released the one song 40-minute album Crimson in 1996 and the 43-minute/9-part sequel Crimson II in 2003, they left an impact on later progressive/technical death metal bands. Another Swedish band Opeth are a highly important band to this subgenre with albums such as My Arms, Your Hearse, Still Life, and Blackwater Park all combining death metal with progressive rock.
- Technical death metal is a more complex subgenre of Death Metal. With complex rhythms, riffs and song structures.
- Technical death metal and progressive death metal are subgenres of Death Metal that infuse the (in)famous assaulting musical brutality of the genre with the technicality and elaborate musical structures of Progressive Metal. The songs tend to be very complex, and often include influences from other genres, such as jazz or classical music; the result is a highly cerebral musical style that rewards close and repeated listening, without surrendering the unrelenting musical aggression Death Metal is known for. There is, or can be, a difference between "technical death metal" and "progressive death metal", though many artists fit both descriptions or oscillate between. While both are undeniably musically sophisticated and extremely brutal, tech death bands tend to come across as much more intense, often performing their complex compositions with blinding speed and pounding aggression, or in a manner that emphasises the virtuosic skill and precision of the performances. Technical death metal can thus sometimes have a somewhat machine-like, "triggered" sound, with instruments starting and stopping suddenly or irregularly, playing precisely calculated riffs or patterns which shift frequently and sometimes seemingly at random, only to form part of a larger motif or series of progressions which become apparent upon close listening. "Progressive death metal", on the other hand, tempers the conventional "death metal" repertoire of elements with jazzy breakdowns, melodic refrains, unusual (for death metal) instrumentation and vocalisation, or slower tempi, and generally draws liberally from diverse musical traditions to create elaborate, multilayered sounds that evolve across lengthy and eclectic albums. Progressive death metal thus tends to be more diverse or less identical-sounding, in that while tech death bands commonly draw inspiration from other musical forms, progressive death metal bands often do so multiply within a single song or album, and though demonstrably capable of the sort of chops-intensive wizardry found in tech death, prog death bands often forego these displays in favour of allowing their compositions time to breath via greater repetition, subtler permutation, and more extensive progression. Thus the distinction could be argued to be that technical death metal prides itself on instrumental skill and experimentation, while progressive death metal prides itself on compositional exploration and originality. A quicker way to explain the difference to a metalhead would be this:
* Progressive: Opeth
* Technical: Decapitated Deserving special attention are Death, not only for inventing Death Metal as a whole, but for subsequently kickstarting both prog and tech with their 1991 album Human, which stood head-and-shoulders above contemporaneous releases in terms of the proficiency and originality of its songcraft and production, with seriously insightful lyrics accompanying inventive chords through inspired and memorable songwriting. It and all subsequent Death albums are considered standard-setting classics, with Human and Individual Thought Patterns cleaving more closely to technical death metal and Symbolic and The Sound of Perseverance closer to progressive death metal to the contemporary ear. Further bands that are generally classified as technical/progressive death metal (exact subgenre noted by their name) include:
* Akercocke (prog, although they are a slight case of Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly and could also be classified as blackened death metal or progressive black metal)
* Arsis (tech)
* Atheist (prog and tech)
* Augury (prog and tech)
* Becoming the Archetype (prog)
* Behold ... The Arctopus
* Beneath the Massacre (tech)
* Between the Buried and Me (prog)
* Beyond Creation (prog and tech)
* Blotted Science (prog and tech)
* Brain Drill (tech)
* Buried Future
* Cephalic Carnage (prog and tech) (also Deathgrind)
* The Chasm (prog and tech)
* Cryptopsy, before they changed their style to Deathcore. (tech)
* Cynic (prog, arguably tech)
* Decapitated (tech)
* Deeds Of Flesh, at least their recent work. (tech)
* Demilich (tech)
* Devolved (tech)
* Dying Fetus (tech)
* Edge of Sanity (prog)
* Eternal Grey (prog and tech)
* The Faceless (tech)
* Fleshgod Apocalypse (tech; mixed with Symphonic Metal)
* Gojira (tech, occasional elements of prog) (also Groove Metal)
* Gorguts (prog and tech)
* Meshuggah (tech, also prog on I and Catch 33; Your Mileage May Vary as to whether they truly count as part of the subgenre)
* Mitochondrion (prog)
* Necrophagist (tech)
* Neuraxis (tech)
* Nile (prog and tech)
* Node (tech)
* Obscura (prog)
* Opeth (prog)
* Origin (tech)
* Pestilence (tech)
* Psycroptic (tech)
* Quo Vadis (tech, debatably prog}
* Sadist (prog)
* Sculptured (prog)
* Spawn of Possession (tech)
* Suffocation (tech)
* Tiamat (prog, on Wildhoney only)
* Timeghoul (prog and tech)
* Ulcerate (prog and tech)
* Veil of Maya (tech) (also Deathcore)
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