VARIOUS ARTISTS (GENERAL) — At Death's Door - A Collection Of Brutal Death Metal (review)

VARIOUS ARTISTS (GENERAL) — At Death's Door - A Collection Of Brutal Death Metal album cover Album · 1990 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"At Death's Door - A Collection Of Brutal Death Metal" is a various artists compilation album released by Roadrunner Records in October 1990. The album was released to promote the label´s leading death and thrash metal artists. For heavy metal fans various artists compilation albums was one of the limited ways of discovering new artists in those days (before the internet). Even if you were lucky enough to find a new artist worth listening to, you often knew almost nothing about the artist, which the inlay of this compilation tries to correct, as there is an interesting introduction to each artist featured on the album.

"At Death's Door - A Collection Of Brutal Death Metal" features 12 tracks and a total playing time of 52:56. Although the title of the album suggests that it´s a compilation of music by brutal death metal artists, it´s actually an album which is pretty evenly shared by death metal artists and thrash metal artists (granted it´s thrash metal in the more brutal end of the scale, but it´s not death metal). Pestilence, Deicide, Morgoth, Death, Obituary, Malevolent Creation, and Atrocity are the featured death metal artists, while Sepultura, Sadus, Exhorder, Believer, and Cerebral Fix are the featured thrash metal artists. All tracks on the album are culled from the artists studio albums/EPs, except "Decadence Within" by Malevolent Creation, which is taken from their 1990 demo (which is a professionally produced demo).

There are some absolutely brillant tracks featured on the album like "Out of the Body" by Pestilence, "Desecrator" by Exhorder, and "Dead by Dawn" by Deicide, but almost every track on the album is a late 80s/early 90s death or thrash metal pearl. If I have to mention a couple of tracks which aren´t fully on par with the rest of the material on the album it would be "Not Even One" by Believer and especially "Culte des Mortes" by Cerebral Fix, but none of them are bad quality tracks.

Today these types of various artists compilations may seem completely redundant, because you can pretty much sample anything you want on various internet sites/streaming services, but back in 1990 this was one of the only ways of learning about new artists, other than purchasing heavy metal magazines and reading reviews and watching the few heavy metal tv-shows which existed, but it was still very difficult to learn about new artists. The point is it´s not in any way comparable to the way things are today. The rate which the heavy metal listener can sample new artists today is incredibly high compared to how it used to be. History lesson aside the material and the tracklist order of "At Death's Door - A Collection Of Brutal Death Metal" is still well worth a listen and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.
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