Mike Browning, a drummer widely credited with helping shape death metal's earliest years, died this month at age 62. Browning played in the first incarnation of Morbid Angel, years before the band recruited the Terrorizer rhythm section of drummer Pete Sandoval and bassist David Vincent, the lineup that would define its classic era.
Browning drummed, and sang on much of the record, for the band's shelved debut album, Abominations of Desolation, recorded in 1986 but not officially released until 1991 after years of circulating as a bootleg among fans. The Quietus's Kez Whelan called it close to a missing link in death metal's evolution: songs like "Chapel of Ghouls" aren't performed with the same speed as their later Altars of Madness versions, but the record's sinister atmosphere, driven by Browning's expressive drumming and biting vocals, is undeniable.
Whelan singled the album out as strikingly ahead of its moment, arriving less than a year after Possessed's Seven Churches and a full year before Death's Scream Bloody Gore, the two records most often named as death metal's true starting point.
After leaving Morbid Angel, Browning pushed the genre further with his own band, Nocturnus, whose 1990 debut, The Key, arrived just over a year after Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness and fused death metal's occult tropes with science fiction themes, using keyboards as a central, almost unhinged focal point rather than mere atmosphere, years before bands like Paradise Lost or Edge of Sanity began experimenting with keys in a metal context.
Whelan's tribute argued that without The Key, later acts including Blood Incantation and Cryptic Shift would likely not exist in their current form.
Browning's death was marked in The Quietus's monthly metal column, which credited him with helping birth an entire subgenre despite rarely receiving the same recognition given to the death metal acts that followed him. His work on Abominations of Desolation and The Key remain touchstones for musicians tracing the genre's transition out of thrash metal in the mid-1980s.
Browning's death adds to a difficult month for metal music, tracked alongside the rest of the genre's news and new releases on MusicSuey.
The facts
- Died this month at age 62
- Founding drummer of Morbid Angel, played on the shelved 1986 recording Abominations of Desolation
- Later founded Nocturnus, whose 1990 debut The Key fused death metal with science fiction themes
- Also sang lead vocals on much of Abominations of Desolation in addition to drumming
- The Key arrived just over a year after Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness
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