Pretty simple: Dark Lunacy's Dramatic Death Metal, and their partner Infernal Poetry, with thei schizoid death metal. I don' remember how I came across this records and their split, but that sure amazed me. Ever since then they became some of my favorite bands. I was probably 15 or 16 and at the time I only listened to thrash, nü, goth and heavy. I know, fuck me
In any case, that marked the age of extreme metal listening for me. Hope that my son one day will be able to say "I was still in my mom's belly when I listened to stuuf like The Project Hate, Behemoth, Nile, Hypocrisy... And later on, when I first got home my dad played some Death, Morbid Angel and Hate for me!". Amazing.

Honestly, I don't have a clue. Mostly I believe I would have to look back into my past to find out with certainty, though this was probably when I was around 7th to 8th grade. It might have been Pantera's Cowboys From Hell, though I remembered I instantly fell in love with it. I'm not sure if this may be considered too extreme.

To be fair, I guess the first extreme metal albums I have listened to completely where Opeth's "Watershed" and Cannibal Corpse's "Butchered at Birth." Loved Opeth's for its dark sound and creativity, but hated the Cannibal one. Now the tables have been turned and I really like Cannibal Corpse, but at that time the sound and vocals just didn't attract me as much.

Now the first extreme songs might have belonged to Venom, but also the Brave World and Bloody Knuckle's first podcast radio. I remember loving Venom, even though it sounded crazy evil to me.

Mine was Pornograffiti.

well your grandfather is fucking awesome, sir.

I wouldn't call it a extreme album today, but the first extreme album I have ever listened to was Children of Bodom - Are You Dead Yet..... I was very impressed when I first heard it, and listened to it for about 3 weeks straight.

What a godawful piece of bovine shite, though...

I remember being a Trivium fanboy in middle school... Around that time, I was into the basics, like Lamb of God, Metallica, Megadeth, Static-X, no Disturbed sadly.

Limewire was HUGE back then. I was downloading random stuff. I remember downloading God Dethroned's "Hordes of Lucifer" because the name sounded cool, but then everything changed. I'll never feel the same way I felt when I heard that. I was genuinely paralyzed, I just sat in my chair and listened as I was assaulted by those really low guitars, those growls/howls, and that horrible fast solo in the beginning. It sounded so inhumane, like that song really did come from a bad place. That discovery led to Cannibal Corpse, Old Man's Child, Morbid Angel, etc...

Pretty sure there was more stuff I found there. I recently found a mix-CD from 7th grade that had a lot of God Dethroned. I really need to give them a proper listen.

Same here.

Ahahahahaaaaa, sweet - thought I was the only one thinking of the band with "Extreme" starting with a capital letter in the thread title.

To the topic:
on a metal-mix-tape I got at the very beginning of my metal listening days was "Ausgebombt" (Sodom) and "Pleasure to kill" (Kreator). So one could say I directly got quite directly into more extreme music, namely Thrash. So the first time I had the impression "wow, that was extreme music" was when I first heard Obituary's "Cause of Death". Those festering vocals really kicked me and for some short time I was a bit into DM but when hearing "A Blaze in the northern sky" on the '92 compilation "Peaceville Vol. 4" I knew which musical way I had to go

The first "extreme" album I ever heard was Reign In Blood. I didn't really know of any other extreme metal at the time and thought Slayer was as heavy as it got, of course, I know that's not the case now.

The first band with "dirty" vocals I ever heard was Static-X**. The first truly "extreme" metal album I listened to was Emperor's Prometheus, and I also got into melodeath (Soilwork, In Flames) around the same time. It's all been downhill from there.

** I suppose Breaking Benjamin also has growls, but I'm not counting them.

My first extreme album that I heard... was probably when I was 8 or 9, it was Hellwitch's Syzygial Miscreancy album. My parents bought it a local swapmeet for a buck or two haha and to be honest I was not prepared for it. It was loud and had such an intense speed... I could not appreciate it at first.. but it grew on me. One of my favorite albums nonetheless! Superb!
Still have it, it was also my first metal cd.

That's enough though, so yeah, death metal-era Opeth were EM. Anyway, my 1st extreme album was probably... yeah, Blackwater

"Scream Bloody Gore." First time I heard this I was like, what the FUCK this is so heavy, it's hard to even fathom it. Loved that album. Still my fave from Death and always will be. Of course as others have said, extreme is all relative and for 1987, this was pretty much the cutting edge of extreme. Two years later, it was considered tame compared to the likes of Carcass, Napalm Death, and Repulsion. Before that I was heavy into the classic thrash/death bands of the day like Slayer, Kreator, etc but "Scream Bloody Gore" just seemed so over the top compared to that, with those brutal, gutteral vocals and the heaviest, gnarliest guitar sound I'd ever heard. The follow up was good too, but nothing that Death recorded after 1990 was ever as heavy, brutal or aggressive as that first album was.

I don't wanna talk about it - ah screw it: St. Anger
Actually, I think that doesn't count because it's more like terrible hardcore than metal.
Let's say Master Of Puppets then. Yeah, that feels about right.
Oh, you say that doesn't count as extreme metal?
Then it must be Samurai by Die Apokalyptischen Reiter. Nothing outstanding but nothing to be ashamed of either.

Mine was either Sepultura's Morbid Visions (which I would consider fairly extreme, moreso than anything else the band put out) or a Celtic Frost tribute album with Enslaved, Emperor, Mayhem, Slaughter, and a number of other bands on it. I don't remember which album I got first. I was 15 or 16.

Sepultura's Bestial Devastation/Morbid Visions which I found in the local library actually (some form of compilation album). Then Suffocation's Breeding the Spawn and Nile's Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka. I remember Gorerotted being one of the first 'real' death metal bands that I really got into too.

Well if thrash is considered "extreme metal" then probably Metallica was the first. I didn't really like them then and I dont really like them now.
If not thrash then Cannibal Corpse's "Vile" was the first. I liked them but thought some of there lyric's were a bit too distasteful. I found other Death Metal bands that I like a lot more shorty after that so I never really listened to any other Cannibal Corpse albums.

Not metal, but this was probably the first music I heard that I would actually consider extreme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiTlkuM3Vyo

Burzum- Burzum/Aske, loved it from the first time I heard it. I think it was late 2004, so i was around 15. kinda funny because at the time i had just gotten into metal and was listening to things like Nightwish, Children of Bodom, Iced Earth, Theatre of Tragedy, Lacuna Coil (regarding that last one.... )

Whoa! That is absolutely fucked! I cannot even imagine hearing Syzygial Miscreancy when I was 8...

But My first experience with "extreme" metal was hearing Bloodlust by Venom when I was 7 or 8, scared the shit out of me!

My first real experiences with extreme metal proper was when Amon Amarth released Twilight of the Thunder God. I was really into vikings at the time and they helped ease me into liking harsher vocals. Soon after that I decided to give Mayhem a chance ( I had tried to like them before but to no avail) Soon Live in Leipzig thrust me head first into the rabbit hole of Black Metal and every thing has been colder and grimmer ever since .

I was in 7th grade like 9 years ago when I heard Cradle of Filth- Dusk in Her Embrace and Decapitated- Nihility.

I listened to the first four Metallica albums. Then I listened to Sodom's Agent Orange, liked it even more. Then I listened to Satanic Warmaster's Black Metal Kommando and I had found my place.

Excluding thrash and nu-metal.
Didn't discover the rest of metal until I was 14.
I remember a compilation CD Kerrang! did back when they gave a fuck about almost all areas of rock/metal. It was a weird fucker. Iggy Pop, Nu-Metal, death and black. We got to the Emperor track, my friends and I looked at each other as if to say "why were we not informed there was fucking music like this?"

How extreme is Behemoth? I think Demigod might have been my first taste. Either that or Anorexia Nervosa, which is extreme to the point of seizures.

Back in the day I was a maniacal Coroner fan, so if they count as extreme then it was Punishment for Decadence in 1989. Seeing them at Maryland Deathfest X was the highlight of my year.

I don't know if it counts, but in 1991 I first heard Vengeance Rising "Once Dead." It's kind of a hard album to pigeonhole because it's sort of a mix of thrash and death metal (the latter mostly in the vocals, I think), and then it had all these blues solos and stuff. To me, the heavy tone of the guitar and the barking vocals were like nothing I'd heard up until that point, because I was used to the falsetto singing of traditional and speed metal. I couldn't understand why someone would intentially deliver the vocals in a way that made the lyrics so hard to decipher, but after a while it didn't bother me.

I think it might have been "Covenant." I kept seeing it in the record store in the mid-90s and marveling at its evilness until one day I just broke down and purchased it. Never regretted it.

At the time, the only metal band I listened to was Demon Hunter. I stumbled across a video on youtube, which was the heaviest and most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. I made out as many words as I could and googled it. Turns out it was "Gods of War Arise" by Amon Amarth. It inspired me to learn to death vocals, but the lyrics were a bit of a turn off at the time. I went back a few months later to get into Amon Amarth, and Twilight of the Thunder God[i][/i] was the first extreme metal album I heard the whole way through.

For the other extreme metal genres

The Sound of Perserverance[i][/i] by Death was the first non-melodic death metal album
The Forsaken[i][/i] by Antestor was the first black metal album
United Abominations or Rust In Peace by Megadeth were the first thrash albums (in that order, depending on if you count the prior as thrash)
Tales From the Thousand Lakes by Amorphis was the first doom
Nailed. Dead. Risen. by Impending Doom was the first and only grindcore album

not sure, but I think it was either Deicide - Insineratehymn or Enslaved - Mardraum, at the time it wasnt really a direct conversion to extreme genres, but more of an interesting introduction

I heard my first album a while after I started getting into it. I first heard extreme metal from the Tony Hawk games, tamer stuff like Lamb of God and In Flames. I eventually got into it, and downloaded a few songs from pretty much any band that piqued my interest. The first album I heard in full was Deicide's Incineratehymn, which I got as a present from a family member. I really liked a few of the tracks but didn't really get into most of them, which pretty much is how I still feel about the album.

I think the first "extreme" album I heard as a whole was Blackwater Park, but I'd listened to a few songs of None so Vile before. They scared me.

Not sure of the albums but my friend's dad used to blast Obituary and Incantation when I was very young. At the time I thought he was just this weird guy who listened to whatever if the fuck, but over the years it grew on me. The first "extreme" album I can recall getting for myself was Tomb of the Mutilated.

I had heard some Cannibal Corpse long before seriously getting into metal and thought it was garbage (I still do). I think the first extreme metal album I bought was In the Nightside Eclipse, followed by Storm of the Light's Bane.

The original Grind Crusher Compilation - first proper album was Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness - I think.

!!!! Same here (well, the Earache/Combat version: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Grind-Cr ... se/1199545 ).

There were tidbits of extreme music here and there prior to that, but that was the first thing that made a huge impact on me.

The Heralds of Oblivion Vol 1. Aside from Winter's Into Darkness (my second), it was the only death metal album my dad owned at the time. Didn't like either at all initially, although to be fair the compilation is hardly better than decent anyways.

It was Exhumed's Gore Metal (to best of my fuzzy knowledge). This was when I was stationed in Southern California, and pretty much was just listening to whatever was in Revolver magazine. It wasn't until I got introduced to the now-dead Metal Forum on Myspace during that time. The aforementioned album was being discussed, so I came here...and saw the fucking awesome album art, blind-ordered the album (not knowing the use of Youtube) and never looked back (until my collection got stolen during the summer of 09 and went through so many phases, before starting my collection all over again 6 months ago).

man that really sucks your collection got stolen! how many cd's? I would kill if anyone touched collection, exhumed are awesome it's really cool it was your first extreme album!

Well the first extreme album I heard was back in sixth grade when I got my hands on the EXCRETION demo "Dream of blood". It blew my mind to space and back and I've been sinking into all kinds of extreme music ever since.

A friend of mine showed me Slayer's Reign in Blood when I was maybe 12, or 13. I still consider it to be "extreme" these days.

I was 13 when i first heard HATE by sinister.
I still love it.

Unless you want to count Reign In Blood, then I think mine was either Death's The Sound of Perseverance or Nile's Annihilation Of The Wicked. The more I try to think about it, the more I seem to forget...