Death metal gets a bad rap, but that could be due to the music. Or the band names. Or the song titles. Or album titles. Or simply the genre name.

Whatever the reason may be, it is, like all extreme metal, misunderstood and underappreciated. Much like hip-hop or jazz, death metal requires talent and unique song structures (or lack thereof).

Before I make my case, perhaps a short history lesson is in order to understand death metal’s origins. Death metal started as a branching-off of thrash metal ? la Slayer and Exodus, adding violence and death-obsessed themes. Despite Slayer generally being seen as speed and/or thrash, lyrics to classics like “Angel of Death,” about Nazi physician Josef Mengele, arguably inspired an entire generation of songs about death.

Then came California’s Possessed. Formed in 1983, the band is considered by many to be the first death metal band. Their 1985 debut Seven Churches is, thus, seen as the first death metal album, though the lyrical content revolved around Satan. Naturally, the final track of Churches is appropriately titled “Death Metal.”

Possessed may be the first death metal band, but Florida’s Death are perhaps more well-known band in its inner circles. Legend has it that frontman Chuck Schuldiner formed Mantas and changed the name to Death because, as metal-archives.com put it, they “wanted to sum up what their music and lyrics [were] about.”

This is in reference to Death’s debut, Scream Bloody Gore, the record seen as the first death metal release with gore-related lyrics.

The 1990s were the decade when the genre exploded. Bands like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide became legends in their own right and also pioneered the “death grunt.” The “death grunt” took the shrieking of Schuldiner and, much like the guitars, detuned and distorted it to make the lyrics damn near unintelligible. This aspect of the genre would later become “the most recognizable attribute when death metal [is] brought up in casual conversation,” according to Mittel.

Gore-themed lyrics, then, may be the secondmost recognizable attribute of death metal. While it is true that many bands discuss dismemberment and murder, the idea that all death metal bands do is simply a stereotype.

Perhaps the best example of this is Sweden’s Opeth. The band, known for its unique sound within the confines of death metal including acoustic interludes and actual singing, is remarkably poetic. For example, “The Drapery Falls” opens with, “Please remedy my confusion/ And thrust me back to the day/ The silence of your seclusion/ Brings night into all you say.” Many Opeth songs are written about internal struggle and lost love and few, if any, discuss death in the sense that, say, Malevolent Creation does.

Humor can also be found in death metal. Take Impaled’s notably catchy tune “Up the Dose,” which satirizes the pharmaceutical industry: “Apathy, passivity/ Vexation is enshrouded in a chemical gloss/ Impenitent, irrelevant/ Your lack of personality is no great loss.”

Many other examples populate the metal landscape. Viking metal, for example, is a metal genre whose lyrical themes are that of Viking exploits and Norse mythology. Viking metal isn’t necessarily all death metal, but, as examples, Sweden’s Amon Amarth and Unleashed play Viking death metal.

If Vikings don’t interest you, then perhaps you might try American death metallers Nile. Nile plays technical death metal (that is, death metal with more complexity than “regular” death metal) with ancient Egyptian themes.

In any case, the bands discussed above (among countless others) use death metal only as a starting point — that is, the monochrome, distorted guitars and the “death growl” are employed but the gore-themed lyrics are thrown out.

Then there’s Ten Masked Men, who are unlike anything else in music: this English collective performs death metal covers of pop songs like “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and “…Baby One More Time.” Yes, there is a band out there that has recorded a death metal version of “Thriller.” It’s quite splendid, by the way.

Despite all that (unknown) variety, record sales have kept death metal out of the public consciousness. To those who respect indie labels like Merge and XL Recordings for keeping the Big Four labels at bay, death metal labels should be added to your list.

To wit, Cannibal Corpse is the perhaps the most successful death metal band in the world, with an estimated one million records sold worldwide over their entire 20-year career. In North America, the band has managed to move over 500,000 albums and videos, according to SoundScan.

In the event that I have peaked your interest in death metal, maybe now you are tempted to run out and get a copy of Butchered At Birth in order to irritate your neighbors. Or, perhaps you just want to confuse your friends when they see it sitting between The Blueprint and A Love Supreme. Hey, it makes sense either way.

Steve Lampiris is a senior majoring in political science. If you also see the bright side of death metal that no one else understands, e-mail him at [email protected]