35. 200 Stab Wounds - "Manual Manic Procedures"

This is by beyond doubt the best death metal album I have heard in a long long time. It is quite hard to put your finger on what makes this so good. In many ways, death metal is a cacophony of contrasting ingredients. Good Death Metal is about getting those juxtaposing components in just the right quantity. With “Manual Manic Procedures”, the constituent parts are imparted in a perfectly balanced manner.

It is aggressive, brutal and full of abrasive energy. But it doesn’t succumb to the usual pitfall of believing that the easiest way of accomplishing that corrosive viciousness is simply to play fast. It realises that even nasty fierce songs need to be well-written and full of enough melodic content to ensure that they are catchy. What you get is a death metal album that is horrendously heavy but has songs that are memorable and serve more functions than just being titillatingly awful. An absolutely brilliant example of extremity at its best.