Autopsy - Severed Survival (Peaceville Records, 1989)

Here's the album that should have been the follow-up to Scream Bloody Gore! After leaving Death, drummer/vocalist Chris Reifert ran with the proverbial ball and filtered the best elements of the former outfit into a skull-smashing debut of Autopsy's Severed Survival. Here we see all the nods towards traditional heavy metal effectively stripped away and replaced with a burly and far uglier product. This, of course, is what makes this album such a classic; the guitars and bass present as unified front of churning fuzz along with Reifert's fearsome skin-bashing and vomitous growls. The subject matter extols grue and death to degrees of fetishism, and the actual lyrics are still regarded as some of death metal's most deranged. A synesthetic smell of death is guaranteed upon pressing “play”.

There was considerable reader outcry that Autopsy didn't make it into the initial top 10, but for all their greatness they never truly exploded as a phenomenon like Morbid Angel or Cannibal Corpse. Nevertheless, their influence has seeped into countless bands since Severed Survival, particularly with East Coast acts like Incantation, Profanatica, and Goreaphobia among others. And for a sick enclave like Autopsy, thirteen seems like a fitting number.

 For more info: Check out this week's list and part 1 & part 2 of the best death metal albums.