Suffocation

If death metal is the equivalent of higher education within the scope of heavy metal’s numerous subgenres, then coming to grips with the music of Suffocation surely qualifies as earning a Master’s Degree. Since taking the extreme metal world by storm in the early ‘90s with their first three albums for Roadrunner Records, these Long Island natives have consistently set the highest bar for improbably dense, earth-shakingly brutal, and infinitely complex death metal. So much so, that Suffocation’s hallowed triumvirate of Effigy Of The Forgotten (1991), Breeding The Spawn (1993), and Pierced From Within (1995) still stands like pillars of death metal accomplishment.