A narrow slice of genre mixing, this subgroup was created mainly by speed metal musicians who adopted the techniques of guitar playing and song construction used in death metal, giving an extra bit of life to speed metal in its waning days. Speed/death bands take on a dominant influence from one of the two genres, with some, such as Rigor Mortis or Slayer, sounding like death metal bands with speed metal vocalists (and conventional technical skills). Others, in an inverse role, sound like perturbed speed metal bands with death metal vocalists, and downgrade their conventional technique toward hardcore levels of brutal chromatic slabs of power chording. However, most of these bands retain a speed metal sense of upbeat but not blistering rhythm, and have songs that are less like codices of the obscure than death metal bands. Not surprisingly, these bands are among the fastest and best-loved of the metal bands.

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