This page is my map of technical metal at its most extreme: the bands that took the speed and weight of extreme metal and loaded it with odd meters, jazz-fusion harmony and long, many-part compositions. It runs from the late 1980s to records released in the last few years, and from Montreal and Florida to Zürich, Enschede and Leipzig.

The short version

Technical extreme metal, often shortened to “tech death” by its listeners, is a branch of extreme metal built on complex song structures, unusual rhythms, frequent changes of time signature, intricate bass lines and drumming that mixes blast beats with odd meters. The reference works name jazz fusion as its main outside influence, together with thrash and the progressive and technical heavy metal of the 1980s. The style took shape in the late 1980s in the United States, Canada and Europe. In 1991 three records arrived within weeks of each other and pointed the way: Atheist’s “Unquestionable Presence”, Pestilence’s “Testimony of the Ancients” and Death’s “Human”. AllMusic later grouped Death, Pestilence, Atheist and Cynic together as the big four of the style.

The “extreme prog” half of this page covers the bands that pushed the same music toward long forms and progressive rock ideas: Edge of Sanity in Sweden, the German band Disillusion, and the Swiss and German technical thrash bands Coroner and Mekong Delta, who were writing complicated heavy music before the style had a name.

From technical thrash to the class of 1991

The groundwork came from thrash metal. Coroner, from Zürich, started out as road crew for Celtic Frost, and in 1986 recorded a demo with Celtic Frost’s Tom G. Warrior on vocals. Together with Voivod and Watchtower, Coroner is credited with helping to invent technical thrash metal in the second half of the 1980s, and its early records are named as an influence on the technical extreme metal that followed. By “Mental Vortex” (1991), AllMusic’s Eduardo Rivadavia noted, raw speed had given way to “highly technical and unconventional songwriting”; the album closes with a cover of the Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. Watchtower’s 1989 album “Control and Resistance” is often cited as another starting point for the genre.

In Germany, bassist Ralf Hubert founded Mekong Delta in 1985. The band kept its line-up secret at first, which led to conflicting reports about who played on the early records. Hubert’s interest in classical music runs through the catalogue: “The Music of Erich Zann” and “Lurking Fear” take their titles from H. P. Lovecraft stories, “Dances of Death (and Other Walking Shadows)” includes an arrangement of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”, and “Pictures at an Exhibition” is a full band version of Mussorgsky’s suite.

The decisive turn came in Florida and the Netherlands. Atheist had formed in Sarasota in 1984, first as Oblivion and then as R.A.V.A.G.E., before settling on its final name. Its debut “Piece of Time” already added jazz fusion and progressive metal ideas to the style, and “Unquestionable Presence”, released by Active Records in August 1991, went further. Bassist Tony Choy, who had played in Cynic and with Pestilence, recorded the album with the band at Morrisound in Tampa. AllMusic’s Mike DaRonco called Atheist “the ultimate progressive metal band of their day”, and Terrorizer gave the album 9.5 out of 10. Pestilence, founded in Enschede in 1986 by Patrick Mameli, Randy Meinhard and Marco Foddis, began as a thrash band, recorded “Testimony of the Ancients” in Tampa in 1991 with short wordless outros after each song, and on “Spheres” (1993) mixed jazz elements into the music and used guitar synthesizers throughout. That same autumn of 1991, Death released “Human”, with Cynic’s Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert joining Chuck Schuldiner and bassist Steve Di Giorgio. Metal Hammer’s Shaun Lindsley called it an “exponential leap forward in innovation”.

Brutality, dissonance and the long form

In the mid-1990s many bands fused the technical approach with the most brutal end of extreme metal, and Cryptopsy from Montreal were at the front of that movement. Formed in 1988 under another name and called Cryptopsy from 1992, the band released “None So Vile” on Wrong Again Records in July 1996, with Lord Worm on vocals and Flo Mounier on drums. Kerrang! called it “technical without being bloated”, and Decibel placed it tenth in a 2012 ranking of the 100 greatest albums of the genre.

Gorguts, formed near Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1989 by Luc Lemay, took a different road. After two albums for Roadrunner the band was dropped and went quiet for about five years, then returned in 1998 with “Obscura” on Olympic Recordings. AllMusic’s William York counted it among the most “challenging, difficult” albums in metal, and Pitchfork’s Hank Shteamer called it “pungently progressive”, in or out of the genre. Its influence reached as far as the band Obscura, which took its name from the record. Lemay, the only constant member, brought Gorguts back with “Colored Sands” in 2013 on Season of Mist, an album nominated for a Juno Award.

In Sweden, Dan Swanö and guitarist Andreas Axelsson had started Edge of Sanity in Finspång in 1989. Alongside Opeth, the band is often named among the first to fuse extreme metal with progressive rock. “Crimson”, released by Black Mark in April 1996, is a single 40-minute track and the band’s first concept album, a story set in a future where humanity can no longer have children; Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt added vocals and lead guitar. Swanö later revived the name as a one-man project for “Crimson II” in 2003.

Disillusion carried the long form into the new century. Founded in Leipzig in 1994 by Andy Schmidt, Tobias Spier, Alex Motz, Markus Espenhain and Jan Stölzel, the band started out playing thrash and released its debut “Back to Times of Splendor” on Metal Blade in 2004. Rock Hard saw it as a serious candidate for debut of the year. “Gloria” (2006) brought in electronic elements and heavily processed vocals and split opinion among reviewers; after a long pause the band returned with “The Liberation” in 2019 and “Ayam” in 2022.

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The bands in this guide

Eight bands from six countries, from the technical thrash pioneers of the 1980s to the bands still releasing records today. Each card opens the band’s page and its album guides.

Elsewhere on Prog Atlas

Several bands that belong to this story live under other scenes on my site. Death and Cynic make up half of the big four, and Cynic formed in Miami in 1987 around Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert, the two players who also appear on “Human”. Watchtower and Voivod are the bands named with Coroner as pioneers of technical thrash. Opeth is the other half of the Edge of Sanity story: Dan Swanö produced its debut “Orchid”, and Mikael Åkerfeldt played on “Crimson”. Ne Obliviscaris is named next to Disillusion among the later bands of extreme progressive metal. And Meshuggah appears in lists of technical extreme metal bands too; it is also the band credited with developing the djent sound, which I explain in my article What Is Djent?

Where to start

I would start with the class of 1991. “Unquestionable Presence” (1991) is regarded as a landmark of the style, and Decibel inducted it into its Hall of Fame in 2005. “Testimony of the Ancients” (1991) is the Pestilence album that took the band in a more technical and progressive direction, and “Human” (1991) is the Death album with two members of Cynic on board. For the thrash roots, “Mental Vortex” (1991) is the Coroner album AllMusic singles out for its technical songwriting. Then move to the brutal side with “None So Vile” (1996), and to the dissonant side with “Obscura” (1998). For the long form, “Crimson” (1996) puts a whole concept album into one 40-minute track, and “Back to Times of Splendor” (2004) is the Disillusion debut that Rock Hard put in the running for debut of the year.

Related scenes

The melodic, song-based side of the same family is in Progressive Metal, and the slow, heavy experiments of the 1990s are in Experimental & Post-Metal. The style’s main outside influence, jazz fusion, has its own page in Jazz Rock & Fusion, and the odd meters show up again in Post-Rock & Math Rock; I compare the two rhythm-obsessed styles in Djent vs Math Rock: What Is the Difference? The American bands named above sit in American Progressive Rock.

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