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50 free Death Metal trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Death metal grew out of thrash in the mid-1980s, when a handful of teenagers in California and Florida decided Slayer was not heavy enough. Within a decade it had its own labels, its own festivals, a rivalry with Norwegian black metal, and a Jim Carrey cameo. This quiz covers who coined the name and why, the bands that built the template, the Florida scene, the labels that cashed in, the vocal and drumming techniques, the bans and Senate speeches aimed at Cannibal Corpse, and the sprawl of subgenres from melodeath and death-doom to slam, deathcore and war metal. Every answer comes with an explanation, so you leave knowing the history as well as the riffs.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What are the genre's deep, coarse roaring vocals commonly called?
Death growls
They are often assumed to be vocal fry, but experienced singers produce the real thing with a different technique entirely.
Q 02Death metal vocals are jokingly compared to which Sesame Street character?
Cookie Monster
The tongue-in-cheek label stuck because the guttural delivery really does resemble the puppet's voice.
Q 03Which drumming technique, alongside double kick, defines death metal's rhythm?
The blast beat
Death's founder once left a Bay Area lineup partly because a drummer who used the technique was, he felt, playing too fast.
Q 04Venom, whose first two albums shaped extreme metal, came from which English city?
Newcastle
Welcome to Hell and Black Metal, released in 1981 and 1982, gave thrash, death and black metal their shared starting point.
Q 05Which Slayer album does AllMusic credit with inspiring the entire death metal genre?
Reign in Blood
Their previous record, Hell Awaits, is also credited with inventing much of the sound and fury that followed.
Q 06Which 1985 debut album is described as 'connecting the dots' between thrash and death metal?
Seven Churches
The band's members cited Venom, Motörhead and early Exodus as their real influences rather than Slayer.
Q 07Under what name was the band Death originally formed in 1983?
Mantas
Their early rehearsal tapes and demos spread through the tape-trading network before a single record existed.
Q 08Who is widely recognized as the 'Father of Death Metal'?
Chuck Schuldiner
He took over vocals in his own band and later pushed it toward progressive, technical territory before his early death.
Q 09What was the title of Death's 1987 debut album?
Scream Bloody Gore
The San Francisco Chronicle called it the first true death metal record; About.com called it the evolution from thrash.
Q 10Death deepened the sound of which Brandon-based band that inspired them?
Nasty Savage
Fast minor-key riffs plus fast drumming became the template that caught on in tape-trading circles.
Q 11Obituary, Morbid Angel and Deicide are the core of which state's death metal scene?
Florida
By 1989 labels were signing the state's bands at a rapid rate, and out-of-town acts relocated there to join the scene.
Q 12What was Morbid Angel's 1989 debut album?
Altars of Madness
AllMusic said it made Venom and Slayer sound like children's music by comparison.
Q 13Which 1991 Death album became a hallmark of technical death metal?
Human
It was the band's fourth record, pairing intricate rhythm guitar with complex arrangements and emotive solos.
Q 21Loudwire describes which death metal vocal style as a 'breeee' sound?
Pig squeals
The technique is most associated with slam and other breakdown-heavy styles.
Q 22Who says he coined the term 'death metal' for a high school English assignment?
Jeff Becerra
His reasoning: speed metal and black metal were taken, and the new name was not yet associated with Venom or anyone else.
Q 23Which band released a 1984 demo titled Death Metal, with a song of the same name?
Possessed
The song reappeared on the band's debut album the following year.
Q 14Which label released albums by Carcass, Napalm Death and Entombed?
Earache Records
It was not founded as a death metal label but became one of the genre's flagships at the start of the 1990s.
Q 15Which label released albums by Obituary and Pestilence?
Roadrunner Records
Like its rivals it went on to bigger successes in other metal genres across the 1990s.
Q 16Where was the 1990 Day of Death festival, one of North America's first, held?
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Death's manager Eric Greif staged it in the Milwaukee suburb with 26 bands, including Atheist, Cynic and Immolation.
Q 17In which years did death metal's popularity reach its initial peak?
1992–1993
Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse enjoyed mild commercial success, but the genre as a whole never went mainstream.
Q 18Fenriz, who said Norwegian musicians were 'fed up' with death metal, drums for which band?
Darkthrone
The rivalry between Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal pushed death metal to diversify into subgenres.
Q 19What is the 2010s movement reviving the genre's 1980s sound called?
The New Wave of Old School Death Metal
Tomb Mold, Necrot, Undergang and Blood Incantation were among the first to gain traction, and the pandemic amplified the attention.
Q 20Which Venom Prison singer did Kerrang! call 'metal's most important and uncompromising voice'?
Larissa Stupar
The band drew attention for confronting what the magazine called death metal's misogyny problem with rape-revenge narratives.
Q 24Thomas Fischer and Martin Ain's band used 'Death Metal' as a zine and split-album title. Which band?
Hellhammer
The pair placed heavy emphasis on the term in 1984, including in the liner notes of Apocalyptic Raids.
Q 25Which 1993 Carcass album is sometimes credited as the first melodic death metal record?
Heartwork
Swedish bands usually get the pioneer credit instead, but this British record beat them to the shelves.
Q 26In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and At the Gates define which city's metal sound?
Gothenburg
Their melodic style uses screams rather than deep roars, slower tempos and far more emphasis on melody.
Q 27Melodeath is heavily influenced by which earlier movement?
The new wave of British heavy metal
Iron Maiden-style twin-guitar harmonies are the clearest inheritance, layered over extreme-metal drumming.
Q 28Which subgenre, pioneered by Thergothon and Skepticism, plays dirge-like music at very slow tempos?
Funeral doom
Other pioneers included Mournful Congregation, Esoteric, Evoken and Funeral, spread across four continents.
Q 29Which style mixes the genre's vocals with elements of 1970s hard rock?
Death 'n' roll
Entombed, Gorefest and Six Feet Under are the standard examples.
Q 30Which subgenre merges death metal with metalcore?
Deathcore
Despised Icon, Suicide Silence and All Shall Perish built the breakdown-driven sound in the 2000s.