Slipknot

In late 1998, Slipknot entered the recording studio to work on their debut album.In the early new year, guitarist Brainard decided to leave the band due to personal reasons.His replacement, Jim Root, left the band with the line-up they retain.Recording finished in early 1999, with "Me Inside" and "Purity",and the band attended the Ozzfest which began in March.On June 29, 1999, the band released their eponymous album Slipknot.Regarding the album, Rick Anderson of Allmusic wrote "You thought Limp Bizkit was heavy? They're The Osmonds. Slipknot is something else entirely."The band performed in the Livin La Vida Loco tour in support of Slipknot.

Slipknot included variations of previously released songs, including "(sic)"; a version of the previous song "Slipknot". These versions were faster than their previous recordings and this shift in intensity was welcomed by old fans.In the same year, Slipknot released their first home video Welcome to Our Neighborhood (which was later released on DVD in 2003).In early 2000, Slipknot was certified platinum, a first for an album released by Roadrunner Records.In July 2001, Q named Slipknot as one of the "50 Heaviest Albums of All Time".The band has stated that their primary influences include Kiss, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Judas Priest, Korn, White Zombie, Led Zeppelin and Beastie Boys.Death metal, black metal and heavy metal have been mentioned as a key influence on the band's musical direction alongside nu metal, the category the band is generally listed as.They have also stated that they are influenced by industrial bands like Head of David, Godflesh and Skinny Puppy as well as Neurosis and jungle music like Roni Size.

Slipknot are seen as pioneers of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. They can be compared with groups such as Pantera, Machine Head, Biohazard, Life of Agony, and Prong and are known for often chaotic and energetic live shows.The extreme performance style provided by their large line-up featuring a typical heavily down-tuned guitar set-up (lead, rhythm, and bass guitars), two percussionists in addition to the primary drummer, and electronics (samplers and turntables).Robert Cherry of Rolling Stone compared the band's sound to "a threshing machine devouring a military drum corps".

Their early work hosted a diverse range of vocal styles, ranging from growled vocals, rapping and occasional melodic.In more recent work, this vocal style remains present, but now includes more melodic singing as well as less rapping.The lyrics generally follow a very aggressive tone and feature themes such as darkness, nihilism, anger, disaffection, love, misanthropy and psychosis.Rick Anderson of Allmusic regards the group's lyrics as "not generally quotable on a family website".There has been controversy surrounding Slipknot's lyrics, including a case in which a pair of young killers blamed the lyrics from the song "Disasterpiece" for their vicious crime and a case in 2006 in which lyrics from the song "Surfacing" were found at the site of a grave robbing.

Deicide

Deicide was formed in Tampa, Florida on July 21, 1987, after guitarist Brian Hoffman called Glen Benton, replying to an advertisement the latter had placed in a local music magazine. They are influenced by bands such as Destruction, Sodom, Venom, Bathory, Possessed, Death and Slayer. The band consisted of Benton (bass/vocals), Hoffman, Hoffman's brother Eric (guitars) and Steve Asheim (drums).Within a month, they had recorded crude Feasting the Beast 8-track demo in Benton's garage and had started playing the occasional gig in the Tampa area.In 1989, Amon recorded their second demo, Sacrificial, at Morrisound with producer Scott Burns.

After a number of lineup changes, Benton assumed the additional role of vocals and the band was renamed Carnage

Malevolent Creation guitarist Phil Fasciana recalls an early Carnage show: "It was like Slayer intensified a thousand times." "I guess Carnage had hollowed out a mannequin blood and guts from a butcher shop... and then they threw the thing on the floor. Morbid Angel had these pit bulls with them back then and they were just tearing the meat up. It was a really weird scene, man. There was blood and meat everywhere."
Shortly after, the guitar roles were then filled by ex-Cannibal Corpse guitarist Jack Owen, and Vital Remains guitarist Dave Suzuki. Following the tour, Suzuki was replaced by Ralph Santolla, formerly of Death, Iced Earth and Sebastian Bach. Santolla stated he is a Catholic and this has received a small amount of shock and ridicule from some metal fans. In spite of this, Deicide's eighth studio album The Stench of Redemption album received rave reviews, and is one of their biggest sellers yet.[citation needed]

On May 24, 2007, it was announced Ralph Santolla had left Deicide.Subsequently, he joined Florida's Obituary and appears on their album Xecutioner's Return as well as the tour. Then on July 20, 2007 guitarist Jack Owen (ex-Cannibal Corpse) announced that Deicide is "on hiatus" and he has joined Ohio based death/thrash combo Estuary for touring purposes.The band did a Balkan tour, dubbed "Balkans AssassiNation Tour", in October 2007 alongside Krisiun, Incantation and Inactive Messiah.

By November 2007 Deicide began work on its ninth studio album at Florida's Morrisound Studios. Entitled Till Death Do Us Part, the follow-up to 2006's The Stench of Redemption promised to be Deicide's "most savage and aggressive [offering] to date," according to a press release. Drummer Steve Asheim recorded drum tracks and Benton started recording vocals in December.By April 2008 two songs off this album were posted online.It was finally released on April 28, 2008.

On January 6, 2009, Deicide posted a blog on their official Myspace page saying they had signed a worldwide record deal with Century Media, with Ralph Santolla returning to the band for a European tour. They were said to be working on material for a summer 2010 release.Guitarist Kevin Quirion of Order of Ennead joined the band in the summer of 2009.In early 2009 they toured with Vital Remains and Order of Ennead.

Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band from Buffalo, New York, formed in 1988. The band has released eleven studio albums, one boxed set, and one live album. Although Cannibal Corpse has had little radio or television exposure, a cult following began to build behind the group with albums such as 1991's Butchered at Birth and 1992's Tomb of the Mutilated. Cannibal Corpse reached over one-million in record sales worldwide in 2003,including 558,929 in the United States, making them the top-selling death metal band of all time in the US, and second worldwide.

The members of Cannibal Corpse were originally inspired by thrash metal bands like Slayer, Kreator, and Sodom, as well as other death metal bands like Morbid Angel and Death.The band's lyrics and its album art (most often done by Vincent Locke),which draw heavily on horror fiction and horror films, are highly controversial. At different times, several countries have banned Cannibal Corpse from performing within their borders, or have banned the sale and display of original Cannibal Corpse album covers.
Cannibal Corpse was made up of members from three earlier Buffalo-area death metal bands, Beyond Death (Webster, Owen), Leviathan (Barnes), and Tirant Sin (Barnes, Rusay, Mazurkiewicz). The band played their first show at Buffalo's River Rock Cafe in April 1989, shortly after recording a five-song demo tape, Cannibal Corpse. Within a year of that first gig, the band was signed to Metal Blade Records, apparently after the label had heard their demo that was sent in by the manager of the record store at which Chris Barnes was working,and their full-length debut album, Eaten Back to Life, was released in August 1990.

The band has had many line-up changes over the years. In 1993, founding member and guitarist Bob Rusay was dismissed from the group (after which he became a golf instructor) and was ultimately replaced by Malevolent Creation guitarist Rob Barrett. In 1995, singer Chris Barnes was dismissed and was replaced by Monstrosity singer George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher. Barnes went on to perform with the band Six Feet Under, and later Torture Killer.

In 1997, Barrett, who had originally replaced Rusay on guitar, left Cannibal Corpse to rejoin his previous bands Malevolent Creation and Solstice. After Barrett left, he was replaced by guitarist Pat O’Brien, who first appeared on Cannibal Corpse's 1998 release Gallery of Suicide. Founding member and guitarist Jack Owen left Cannibal Corpse in 2004 to spend more time on his second band, Adrift. He joined Deicide in late 2005. Jeremy Turner of Origin briefly replaced him as second guitarist on 2004's Tour of The Wretched Spawn. Barrett rejoined the band in 2005 and was first featured on the album Kill, released in March 2006.

Writing for the next album began in November 2007, as presaged in an interview with bassist Alex Webster.Evisceration Plague, Cannibal Corpse's eleventh studio album was released February 3, 2009,to a highly positive response from fans. The band will tour in support of the album in the spring of 2009

Opeth

Opeth is a Swedish Progressive metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. While the band has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force since joining promptly after its inception.

While firmly rooted in Scandinavian death metal, Opeth has consistently incorporated influence by progressive music, folk, blues rock and jazz into their usually-lengthy compositions. Many compositions include acoustic guitar interludes and strong dynamic shifts, as well as both growling and clean vocals. Though they rarely toured in support of their first four albums, Opeth conducted their first world tour after the 2001 release of Blackwater Park.

Opeth has released nine studio albums, two live albums, two box sets, and two DVDs. The band released its debut album Orchid in 1995. Although their eighth studio album Ghost Reveries was quite popular in the United States, Opeth did not experience American commercial success until the 2008 release of their ninth studio album, Watershed, which peaked at number twenty-three on the Billboard 200, and topped the Finnish albums chart in its first week of release.
Opeth was formed as a death metal band in the autumn of 1990 in Stockholm, Sweden by vocalist David Isberg.Isberg asked former Eruption band member Mikael Åkerfeldt to join Opeth as a bassist. When Åkerfeldt showed up to practice the day after Isberg invited him, it became clear that Isberg had not told the band members, including the band's current bassist, that Åkerfeldt would be joining. An ensuing argument led to all members but Isberg and Åkerfeldt leaving to form a new project.The band name was derived from the word "Opet," taken from the Wilbur Smith novel The Sunbird.In this novel, Opet is the name of a fictional Phoenician city in South Africa whose name is translated as "City of the Moon" in the book; the name might be a reference to Opet Festival or the Egyptian goddess Taweret, also known as Opet.[citation needed]

Isberg and Åkerfeldt recruited drummer Anders Nordin, bassist Nick Döring, and guitarist Andreas Dimeo. Unsatisfied with Opeth's slow progress, Döring and Dimeo left the band after their first performance,and were replaced by guitarist Kim Pettersson and bassist Johan DeFarfalla. After the next show, DeFarfalla left Opeth to spend time with his girlfriend in Germany, and was replaced by Åkerfeldt's friend, bassist Peter Lindgren. Lead guitarist Pettersson left following the band's next performance, and Lindgren switched to guitar. After losing interest in the band, Isberg quit in 1992 because of creative differences.

With three members in the band, Åkerfeldt took over vocal duties and the trio spent the next year writing and rehearsing new material. The group began to rely less on the blast beats and aggression typical of death metal, and incorporated acoustic guitars and guitar harmonies into their music; developing the core sound of Opeth. Stefan Guteklint joined on bass in 1993, but was dismissed by the band after signing its first record deal with Candlelight records in 1994. The band initially employed former member DeFarfalla as a session bassist for the recording, and he went on to join on a full-time basis following the release of Opeth's debut album in 1995.

Morbid Angel

Morbid Angel is an American death metal band based in Tampa, Florida. They, along with Death, Possessed, Obituary, Massacre, Deicide, Death, Cannibal Corpse, and a handful of others were crucial in the development of the death metal genre and its standards, separating it from thrash metal completely. UK music magazine Terrorizer ranked two Morbid Angel albums in its "Top 40 Greatest Death Metal Albums," with their 1989 debut Altars of Madness appearing at number 1. Decibel Magazine also rated guitarist Trey Azagthoth as the number 1 "Death Metal Guitarist Ever". The band's songs are complex in arrangement, owing to the considerable technical skills of both Azagthoth and drummer Pete Sandoval (who also played in the grindcore/death metal band Terrorizer). According to Nielsen SoundScan, Morbid Angel is the third best-selling death metal band in the United States with sales over 445,000[1] in the United States alone, and releasing the best-selling death metal album in the United States of all time, Covenant, with sales over 127,000.
Current line-up

Morbid Angel, 2008Trey Azagthoth – guitar, guitar synthesizer, keyboards, backing vocals (1983–present)
Pete Sandoval – drums, percussion (1988–present)
David Vincent – bass guitar, vocals (1986–1996, 2004–present)
Destructhor – guitar (2008–present)
[edit] Former members
Bass guitar
Dallas Ward – bass guitar, vocals (1983–1985)
John Ortega – bass guitar (1985–1986)
Sterling Von Scarborough – bass guitar (1986)
Drums
Mike Browning – drums, percussion, vocals (1983–1986)
Wayne Hartsell – drums (1986–1988)
Guitar
Richard Brunelle – guitar (1985–1992, 1994, 1998)
Gino Marino – guitar (1992–1993)
Erik Rutan – guitar, keyboards (1993–1996, 1999–2002, 2006)
Tony Norman – guitar (2003–2006)
Vocals
Kenny Bamber – vocals (1985)
Michael Manson – vocals (1986)
Steve Tucker – vocals, bass guitar (1997–2001, 2003–2004)
Jared Anderson – vocals, bass guitar (2001–2002)

Napalm Death

Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion" and "Undead Hatred") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981.

The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the Anarcho-punk movement (a sub-genre of punk music focused on anarchist politics) and groups within that genre such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitar, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex- Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on July 25, 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with Anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing Power Electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.

In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar.
After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bassplayer. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of Post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy Punk in the vein of Discharge, and Thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and Celtic Frost).

The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.[citation needed]

In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail.

Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris(a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.

The trio - Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums - made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.

The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.

cover for the Hatred Surge demo recording from 1985. From left-right: Justin Broadrick, Nicholas Bullen, Mick HarrisThe band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university).

Manowar

Manowar is a heavy metal band from Auburn, New York, United States of America, formed in 1980. They are known for writing lyrics with an emphasis on the heavy metal genre itself, fantasy (particularly sword and sorcery) and mythological topics (particularly Norse mythology). Manowar's sound is loud and bombastic; in an interview for MTV in February 2007, bassist Joey DeMaio lamented that "these days, there's a real lack of big, epic metal that is drenched with crushing guitars and choirs and orchestras... so it's nice to be one of the few bands that's actually doing that."In 1984 the band was included in the Guinness Book of World Records for delivering the loudest performance, a record which they have since broken on 2 occasions. They also hold the world record for the longest heavy metal concert after playing for 5 hours and 1 minute in Bulgaria in 2008.
Although the band has never been a mainstream commercial success in the United States, they maintain a strong cult following there. In contrast, they are extremely popular in the heavy metal scene in Europe, Japan, Australia and South America. Dedicated fans are known and referred to by the band as "Manowarriors" or "Immortals", and collectively their fans are known as the "Army of Immortals".