EXTREMITY RETAINED: Notes On The Death Metal Underground

We, Metal fans, fell in love with our two ears, one day when we heard a sound by chance, that of transgressive guitars, progressive rhythms, and incisive howls. We have quenched our thirst for violence by feasting on albums of our generation, and I will ask you in advance for some excuses for daring to focus on my own case.

Metal for me was at first classic. The first MAIDEN educated me, quickly followed by those of DIO, PRIEST, and then the US wave of MÖTLEY, RATT and others.
Some of you were completely satisfied with this moderate assault, but like millions of other fans around the world, this was just a simple step for me on the path to the quest for ultimate violence. One day, the power of METALLICA blew on the still glowing embers of Heavy Metal, and EXODUS, KREATOR, SLAYER took over, pushing me to my last entrenchments, breathless, and heartbroken. Could we go further? This seemed to be the only question worthy of an answer, to which FROST, VENOM, MAYHEM and POSSESSED answered fairly quickly.

 We could therefore push the provocation even further. These are the latter who dared on their first album, titling one of their songs in a way that intrigued more than one.

"Death Metal"? What was this concept that seemed to obscure all the noise warning of Thrash, accentuating the heaviness, accelerating the tempo even more, and dehumanizing vocals already badly damaged by the bass?

 But the enigma was quickly solved by a few mercenaries who came out not from nowhere, but from the United States, and who, while SLAYER laid the foundations for the border between noise and music with Reign In Blood, released their latest demos before invasion final of the extreme metallic landscape.

MANTAS, X-ECUTIONNER, MORBID ANGEL, NIHILIST. Some names thrown on the fly for a style that would serve as an outlet for the fierce hatred of some, and the total devotion of others. And this is the book for this book, and therefore my prose today, to this horde of maniacs never satisfied with a volume that is always too low, and riffs that are never morbid enough.

Thus was born Death Metal, the ultimate genre of the extreme, which for a handful of years was to embody absolute evil, before it migrated to even more dark horizons. And it is his story that Jason Netherton invites you to discover, in their own words, since the author had the modesty necessary to let the very actors of the scene speak, those who made it, by their music, by their words, or simply by their investment, and often all three at the same time.

Native of Maryland, this lost state which one day saw appearing out of nowhere one of the biggest festivals of its kind, the Maryland Deathfest, Jason is a child of Death ball which bounces from coffin in epitaph, and founding member of MISERY INDEX, as well as a former abortionist with the DYING FETUS. It was he who got down to the heavy task of concentrating in a single volume a large part of the history of Death Metal, a genre which had hesitant but incendiary beginnings, and which has been standardized by the years. , old-fashioned by Nu Metal, and which finally seems to find a new youth via the distortion and radicalization of Deathcore.
But no mistake, Jason him, is an old man of the old, and even if he does not remain silent in Extremity Retained the most recent period, it is well the foundations of the legend which obsess him, like all those thus the roots go back to the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, that is to say this pivotal period of less than a decade, which some present as "the golden age".

His book, an all but disparate collection of anecdotes and testimonies, is a card of the tender of Death Metal which lets musicians tell their own story, and who ultimately, end up telling the great one, the one who runs from mid 80's to nowadays, and which is immersed in the still smoking entrails of the birth of DEATH, OBITUARY, SUFFOCATION, IMMOLATION, MORTICIAN, MORBID ANGEL, ENTOMBED, UNLEASHED and other PIG DESTROYER.
 Cut into five chapters of equal value and length, Extremity Retained therefore offers a pilgrimage that will take you back to the roots, that will share memories of the scene, that will take you through the doors of mythical studios to feel the vibrations of major albums, then who will take you on tour alongside your heroes, piled up in worn vans or exhausted old buses, and who will finally make you fly over the moor to ask the only question that remains unanswered, what future for Death Metal these days?

 These wanderings will allow you to rub shoulders with essential figures of the scene, from Mitch Harris (RIGHTEOUS PIGS, NAPALM DEATH) to Alex Webster (CANNIBAL CORPSE) via John McEntee (INCANTATION, REVENANT), Dan Swano (EDGE OF SANITY), Luc Lemay (GORGUTS), but also Harris Johns (producer) and many others whose names may not tell you anything, but whose music still rings in our ears badly damaged by the unbridled decibels.
Let’s not hide it, this book is a true declaration of love for a genre whose message has often been misunderstood, and whose actors have often been taken for what they were not at all. Far from being the bullies that the mainstream press liked to describe, these musicians reveal themselves without make-up and without artifices, and speak without filter, often holding the same speech always so invested. The anecdotes are often shared by instrumentalists as far apart in style as in geography, and it is not uncommon for the same words to come out of the mouths of groups having emerged in Florida, South America, Sweden or in Australia. Between difficult beginnings and ends that were just as much for some, you will discover the daily life and finally, the life of a handful of mentally ill people who one day rejected the routine to go headlong into the most crazy that Metal told you. Certainly, the same book devoted to Thrash and Hardcore would not have been different, but it is always fun to read certain statements while remembering the noise proposed by these same groups on album.

Between tours / adventures based on canceled concerts and vans stranded on the road, stuffed toilets, recordings where the means on board had to compensate for the lack of professionalism, relentless tape-trading to discover the latest novelty in vogue, the authenticity of the movement is transcribed with a bluffing fidelity, and finally, we quickly realize that these musicians yet so honored by the underground were nothing very different from us.

Most of them started their careers when they were still kids, and still haven't put them on hold, despite adversity, poverty or blows.

Extremity Retained is therefore a book that reads like the fantastic logbook written by an army with faith and law, and devours in one go as its direct style is as punchy as the rhythms of Death Metal that slap like blows whip. If everyone chooses their favorite chapter (I admit that those devoted to studio passages and tour anecdotes are my favorites), all the fans will find themselves around a whole that smells of family life and common memories.

Because even if some of these musicians have never known each other, they have all crossed the same people, have all stopped in the same clubs, and have all vowed the same passion to the most legendary figures (who are often the most humble) of the kind.

And Jason Netherton, by fading behind the real heroes to whom he has given the floor, has made the best choice possible. The internal focus allows you to fully immerse yourself in this movement, which was ultimately one of the most DIY and family-friendly of the whole extreme. I knowingly chose not to reproduce here any quotation to leave you the pleasure of the discovery intact, but know that in addition to these famous vignettes of memory which will take you from record stores to the scenes of the biggest festivals, passing between the walls of Morrisound , and under the pen of Dan Seagrave, you will also find a good number of facsimiles of flyers, concert posters, album covers and other distro lists, reproduced for your viewing pleasure.

So yes, Death, for some was the ultimate step on the road to the absolute. Others went further, some abandoned and left the ship, but she is still afloat, with a reinforced hull and a slightly modified crew, but no one has forgotten, especially not them. And since they didn't want you to forget you either, they told you everything, without embarrassment, without shame, and with a certain pride mingled with innocence. Because that was it, Death Metal, for them, and also for you, if you are my age, or a little less.A life, a passion. And if we all slowly rot on the altar of madness, if we wait for spiritual healing before the effigies of the forgotten, if we take the path of the left rather than being cursed, we will all end up stinking of putrefaction. This is how.

But in the meantime, what a step we have taken!