Technical Death Metal

Technical Death Metal emerged in the late 1980s, primarily in the underground scenes of the US, where musicians decided that playing really fast and really complicated was the best way to impress everyone whilst simultaneously terrifying poor unsuspecting listeners. It’s characterised by dizzying time signatures, relentless blast beats, and guitar solos that seem to defy the laws of physics, sounding as if the musicians are trying to prove that they can play an entire orchestra's worth of notes all at once. Fans often joke that if you don't need a spreadsheet to follow the song structure, it’s just not technical enough, which is a cheeky way of saying they have better maths skills than most of us.