1991: The Quintessential Year For Death Metal

       The most important year in the history of death metal was no doubt 1991. It could be that I believe this because it was the year I really got into death metal, and living in the Tampa Bay Area at the time made it easy to access the brutal stuff, or it could be the insane number of genre classics released that year. My two favorite albums in the genre (Pestilence – “Testimony Of The Ancients” and Death – “Human”) as well as another in my top 5 (Atheist – “Unquestionable Presence”) were released that year. It was really the year that death metal started going outside the box of unbridled brutality and started incorporating other influences into the sound to give it more dynamism. Sure, there were no shortage of bands that have continued even onto this day to play straightforward and brutal with no sense of technicality and melody, and I love many of those bands as well. However, experiencing the maturation and development of the sound to incorporate the right amounts of melody and technicality (before many bands started grossly overdoing it on those traits, to the detriment of my ears) made it a great time to be a metalhead.

       Here is the Top 50 Death Metal albums of 1991, according to the folks at rateyourmusic.com. I don’t completely agree with the order, but I can’t deny the lethality of the albums on this list!

1		Atheist Unquestionable Presence
2		Death Human
3		Autopsy Mental Funeral
4		Dismember Like an Ever Flowing Stream
5		Carcass Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious
6		Entombed Clandestine
7		Morbid Angel Blessed Are the Sick
8		Suffocation Effigy of the Forgotten
9		Immolation Dawn of Possession
10		Pestilence Testimony of the Ancients
11		Massacra Enjoy the Violence
12		Asphyx The Rack
13		Bolt Thrower War Master
14		Massacre From Beyond
15		Convulse World Without God
16		Malevolent Creation The Ten Commandments
17		Ripping Corpse Dreaming With the Dead
18		Grave Into the Grave
19		Gorguts Considered Dead
20		Sarcófago The Laws of Scourge
21		Messiah Choir of Horrors
22		Unleashed Where No Life Dwells
23		Pungent Stench Been Caught Buttering
24		Protector A Shedding of Skin
25		Darkthrone Soulside Journey
26		Death Strike Fuckin’ Death
27		Morgoth Cursed
28		Benediction The Grand Leveller
29		Morbid Angel Abominations of Desolation
30		Jumpin’ Jesus The Art of Crucifying
31		Master On the Seventh Day God Created… Master
32		Gorefest Mindloss
33		Cancer Death Shall Rise
34		Sororicide The Entity
35		Nocturn Estranged Dimensions
36		Revenant Prophecies of a Dying World
37		Carbonized For the Security
38		Sentenced Shadows of the Past
39		Tiamat The Astral Sleep
40		Sorcery Bloodchilling Tales
41		Cannibal Corpse Butchered at Birth
42		Megaslaughter Calls From the Beyond
43		Immortalis Indicium de mortuis
44		Sadistik Exekution The Magus
45		Funebre Children of the Scorn
46		Mortuary Blackened Images
47		Mortification Mortification
48		Xysma Yeah!
49		Loudblast Disincarnate
50		Imperator The Time Before Time