Brutal Tech Death

Since tech and brutal have so much overlap and much of it sounds the same, something in the back of my nerdy-ass head's been slightly bugging me, why not just make a list for brutal tech?  And now I'm thinking, not that we have to make a new official tag for it in the genre system or some shit, but if you had to group it all in one, what would you call it?  I mean, so many of the early pioneers went the tech route: Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Deeds of Flesh, and many famous bands later on would copy it, from Nile to Dying Fetus to Defeated Sanity.  Anyway, this is more of a light game than anything.

I guess I'd just call it Suffocation metal for the pioneers, in the spirit of the naming of death metal in the first place.

Although we're not up to splitting subgenres at the moment, I actually agree here, Rex. Tech-death is, like most other death metal subgenres, kind of an iffy genre for me to explore. It can either be the brutal side with bands like Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Nile, and Dying Fetus, or the melodic/progressive side (the side that I prefer) with bands like Allegaeon, Fallujah, Job for a Cowboy (2010s and later), and Obscura. I would call the former sound brutal tech-death and the latter sound progressive tech-death. I wouldn't be up to naming a sub-subgenre after a band though. That really makes it sound like a band of that style sounds similar to the band who pioneered the sound and really decreases its uniqueness. And that kind of thing has been done to death on social media.

It's my opinion that a large portion of the releases tagged as tech death on other websites are mistagged as the understanding of the genre is pretty atrocious these days. For example, the biggest names in tech death are all much better served by the progressive death metal tag (Death, Cynic, Atheist, Pestilence, etc) & the dissonant death metal tag has made the tech death tagging on bands like Gorguts & Ulcerate redundant too. The same can be said of the more brutal acts we're referring to here as labelling Cryptopsy's first couple of releases or the vast majority of Dying Fetus' back catalogue as tech death is stretching the friendship as far as I'm concerned. I'd even extend that to some of the earlier Nile releases like "Black Seeds of Vengeance" & "In Their Darkened Shrines" which only seem to receive the tech death tag due to the speed & brutality of the drumming which is inherent in all brutal death metal so I can't see the need to go there personally. I'd prefer it if the tech death tag was reserved for genuinely technical yet non-progressive bands like Suffocation or Spawn of Possession. 

It's my opinion that a large portion of the releases tagged as tech death on other websites are mistagged as the understanding of the genre is pretty atrocious these days. For example, the biggest names in tech death are all much better served by the progressive death metal tag (Death, Cynic, Atheist, Pestilence, etc) & the dissonant death metal tag has made the tech death tagging on bands like Gorguts & Ulcerate redundant too. The same can be said of the more brutal acts we're referring to here as labelling Cryptopsy's first couple of releases or the vast majority of Dying Fetus' back catalogue as tech death is stretching the friendship as far as I'm concerned. I'd even extend that to some of the earlier Nile releases like "Black Seeds of Vengeance" & "In Their Darkened Shrines" which only seem to receive the tech death tag due to the speed & brutality of the drumming which is inherent in all brutal death metal so I can't see the need to go there personally. I'd prefer it if the tech death tag was reserved for genuinely technical yet non-progressive bands like Suffocation or Spawn of Possession. 

Personally, I find dissonant death to be its own subgenre rather than an offshoot of death.  Some of it is structured a bit too conventionally.  I mean, Gorguts can keep both, but if it ain't tech it ain't tech.  Now I'll keep the Nile tag, considering that they're my current favorite of this so-called category because of their outlandish elements, incorporating some crypt-crawling doom into the mix.  My review of Darkened Shrines was about as glowing as any review I'd give a good Coppola.  I guess instead of a "subgenre," it's more like a "niche offshoot," though I'd still consider it a bit more relevant than something like "downtempo deathcore."  And of course, most of the brutal stuff only has mild tech to it if any at all.  Can't expect much from the majority of slam, so it's a fine line, especially when some albums by the same acts will be either more tech or more brutal than others.