I think we can all agree that Martin Van Drunen gives some of the best vocal performances in death metal, but what do you feel his best efforts are? For me, I'm gonna play it safe and just go with the no-brainer Consuming Impulse where his approach seems a little more traditional. I like that with every album he seems to vocally go into a new direction, like with early Asphyx albums where the pitch of his voice seemed to jump up and by Death... the Brutal Way they seem to have reverted back to the CI style. Plus you have the early thrash albums!
Granted, I've not yet heard Deathhammer nor anything from Hail of Bullets, so i pretty much need to do that pretty soon! I'm intrested in how they differ from everything else...

Anyways, what do you guys think?

I don't know, but it likely has the Pestilence logo on the cover.

It's hard for me to isolate his performances individually, especially across all the albums he's done. I think he is among the (probably the) very best death metal vocalists ever. Most enjoyable for me are his Hail Of Bullets albums, Death The Brutal Way, and Deathhammer - particularly because I listen to them far more than anything else he's done.

I'm going to say Asphyx's Last One on Earth. Didn't care much for Deathhammer, nor have I listened to much Pestilence or the rest of Asphyx's discography. Hail of Bullets were alright, from what I can remember.

The only correct answer is... all of them!

The Rack, because it's simply some of the grimest (that word isn't usually used when talking about DM, but it more than applies here.) Death Metal you'll ever hear. You can't really top 'Vermin' for Death Metal vocals.

The guy's a legend and has made many great records. Hats off to him!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKM4zPFodw

Personally I'd go with that first Hail of Bullets album. Of course I heard it and loved it far before I listened to any of his other bands so I'm somewhat biased. His performance on Of Frost of War blew my fucking mind when I first heard it though. I remember thinking "Wow, there is no one else who sounds like this guy." Such intensity. If a fucking sasquatch fronted a death metal band I think it would sound similar to Martin Van Drunen.

The correct answer.

The Rack and Consuming Pestilence for sure. Everything he's done is magic though. My favourite DM vocalist of all time.

The Correct Answer.

Last One On Earth.

Consuming Impulse, probably one of my top 3 death metal albums.

Its a draw for me between Pestilence Consuming Impulse or Asphyx Last One on Earth.

I can only imagine if he knew he was no longer in Asphyx when he recorded the vocals on Last One on Earth, if A:) would have done a sloppy job(basically saying fuck you Asphyx) or B:) used some anger to fuel his hatred and elevate his performance even more (though it was a great one to begin with).....still i always wondered what if?