As a continuation of my friend's metal education, I made him another Mixcloud compilation to accompany the massive e-mails I'd already burdened him with.
It was obvious from the start that as a newcomer to metal, the more blast-heavy bands wouldn't be his thing. Pretty much everything that could be described as "brutal" was out. I thought back to the stuff that had the most impact on me when I was first making my initial descent into the underground. Carcass, Obituary, Napalm Death, and At the Gates were among my first purchases as a teenage death metal convert, and only got me more excited about the genre. He'd already mentioned that he loved Wolverine Blues, so I threw on a hell of a lot of Swedish death metal for him. Between that crunchy Sunlight Sound and the mix of melody and groove that characterized those bands, I can't think of a better way to win someone over to the genre (which is often willfully obtuse).
I also included an Amorphis song that I first heard on the Death Is Just The Beginning III compilation back in high school. That was my main introduction to some of the biggest names in death metal, including Dissection, Sinister, and Kataklysm. [Obviously, the title of this mixtape is an homage to that comp.] It would be great if this comp has the same kind of influence on my friend; but more than anything, I just have fun whenever I make a damn good mixtape.
