Goregrind, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Heavy metal 1970
It split off from hard rock and blues rock when Black Sabbath tuned down and wrote riffs on the tritone. Volume, riff and a code of its own - every branch below starts here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Black Sabbath - the song Black Sabbath. The first thirty seconds are the genre's birth certificate.
Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) - 2 Then
Grindcore 1985
Hardcore and death metal compressed into songs under a minute, with continuous blast beats. Napalm Death have a song that lasts one second.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Put on
Napalm Death - Scum. Side B, with Bill Steer on guitar, is the essential half.
Napalm Death, Scum (1987) - 3 What you asked about
Goregrind 1988
Grindcore with pitch-shifted vocals and lyrics from a pathology textbook. Carcass wrote the rules on their first two albums.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Put on
Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness. Better produced than the debut, which is a low bar.
Carcass, Symphonies of Sickness (1989) - 4 Where to go next
War metal / bestial 1990
Black and death metal reduced to noise, speed and bullet belts. The least legible branch of metal there is.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Put on
Blasphemy - Fallen Angel of Doom. Twenty-five minutes of organised chaos.
Blasphemy, Fallen Angel of Doom (1990)
Assembled from the tree: every genre Goregrind descends from, in order. Goregrind has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.