How to Write Slam Death Metal Lyrics

You want words that hit like a breakdown and hold up on stage when the vocalist vomits sound into the PA stack. Slam death metal is a specific kind of brutality. It is not shock for shock value. It is rhythm first, consonant heavy, and performance aware. This guide teaches you how to write slam lyrics that sound violent on first listen and make brutal sense when a human body spits them into a mic.

Everything below is written for artists who want to craft lyrics that work in a pit and on records. You will find definitions, real world tips, vocal friendly prosody hacks, a step by step workflow, examples that are safe to scream, and exercises you can do in an Uber, on the toilet, or in a van with the AC broken. We will explain terms so you can talk to producers and vocalists without sounding like you read one forum thread and called it research.

What Is Slam Death Metal

Slam death metal is a substyle of extreme metal that emphasizes crushing low end riffs, ultra slow to mid tempo chugging, and vocals that focus on guttural textures and rhythmic hits. It comes from brutal death metal roots with an extra focus on syncopated breakdowns called slams. A slam is a stop time or heavily accented riff meant to make the crowd collapse inward and then explode. Producers often tune guitars very low and compress drums to create a molasses weight. Vocal techniques favor low gutturals, pig squeals, and short, percussive screams.

Quick glossary

• Guttural means deep vocal tones made low in the throat. It is not a single technique. It can be open, closed, or choked.
• Pig squeal is a high, squealing vocal sound often used for accents. It is produced with different airflow and mouth shape than a deep guttural.
• Blast beat is an extreme drum pattern usually very fast. Slams often come after a blast or a fast section for contrast.
• Breakdown is a rhythmically heavy, simpler riff often used to get people moshing. In slam death it is the moment the riff grinds into a chugging mass.
• Prosody is how your words sit on the rhythm and melody. In extremity, prosody is everything. If a word does not line up with the beat the line will feel off no matter how clever it looks on paper.

Core Aesthetic Choices

Slam lyrics share a palette. Know the palette so you can borrow from it without sounding like a copycat. The palette is heavy, visceral, and often transgressive. It uses bodily imagery with metaphor and literal language. Fans want extremity. They also value authenticity. That means if your lyrics pretend to be a narcotic hallucination then they should read and feel like one. If your lyrics are revenge fantasy, they should be coherent within that fantasy. Keep the internal world consistent.

• Tone can be clinical, poetic, grotesque without being graphic, or violent allegory. Decide whether your song is a report, a confession, or a ritual chant.
• Pacing relies on syncopation and rests. Slam lyrics breathe in odd places. Lines often end on offbeats or inside the slam groove.
• Language tends to favor hard consonants and low vowels for guttural clarity. Think plosives and open backs.

Real Life Scenario

Imagine you are on tour. The van smells like stale coffee and laundry gone wrong. Your vocalist naps with earplugs in. At midnight you get an idea for a slam tag. You have two choices. One, write a textbook gore explosion that sounds impressive on paper and gives your vocalist a throat workout with no breath points. Two, write a ten syllable line with heavy consonants, clear breath breaks, and an anchor word that the crowd can shout. The second gets the pit started. The first makes an okay meme. Know which you want.

How Slam Lyrics Differ From Standard Death Metal Lyrics

Both genres share themes of mortality and extremity. The main difference is rhythmic and functional. Slam lyrics must survive guttural delivery and work as rhythmic devices. Traditional death metal sometimes luxuriates in long, descriptive lines. Slam wants punch. Every line can be an accent. Every chorus phrase can be a breakable riff. That changes how you choose vocabulary and line length.

Functional differences

• Slam lines are often shorter to allow tight breath and beat attacks.
• They use internal rhyme and consonant clusters to create percussive flow.
• They leave space for vocal effects like pig squeals or growl flips.

Choosing Your Theme

You can write about anything. Slam fans like extremes, metaphors that hold, dark humor, ritualistic chanting, and visceral abstraction. Pick one clear theme per song and orbit it. If the theme is decay then build layers where each verse reveals a different piece of the decay. If the theme is righteous punishment, consider the narrator voice. Is it human, supernatural, a machine, or a concept like entropy speaking?

Examples of sustainable themes

• Ritual and cult confession
• Machineization of the body
• Infection and corruption as metaphor
• Psychological collapse described as architectural failure
• Revenge that becomes self consuming

Point of View and Narrator Choices

First person gives raw confessions. Second person makes the listener the target. Third person can create distance and allow detailed description with an observer voice. Use perspective to control intimacy.

Real example scenarios

• First person: A cult initiate narrates the final rite. Short punchy lines. Breath points at ritual verbs.
• Second person: You are accused by a machine. Lines that call out the listener work great in slams because they translate to chant back and forth on stage.
• Third person: An observer catalogs the collapse of a city. Longer sentence fragments allowed, but keep them chopped for performance.

Prosody That Works With Guttural Vocals

Prosody is the relationship between linguistic stress and musical rhythm. For slam you must match stressed syllables with strong beats. Guttural delivery tends to blur sibilants and high frequency consonants. Choose words with clear plosive and nasal centers. Test everything by throat singing it in the shower. If the vocalist cannot hear the consonant attack through the growl you will lose the crowd on lyric repeats.

Practical prosody rules

• Keep critical words to one or two syllables. One syllable words land hard.
• Place the emotional keyword on the downbeat or on a long sustained guttural note.
• Avoid long multi vowel words in a line meant to be spat quickly. They can smear under heavy compression.
• Use alliteration and consonance for percussive clarity. Repeat the same consonant or sound family in a phrase to create attack.

Why vowels matter

Low back vowels like ah and o are easier to project in deep growls. High front vowels like ee can sound thin unless the vocalist has technique to push them. If you write a chorus that relies on singing high vowels in a guttural context the melody may be lost. Instead pick words with compact vowels and let the production add presence in the top end.

Word Choices That Survive The Mic

Here are word families that slam lyrics love

• Plosives: b, p, t, d, k, g. They give punch and cut through the mix.
• Nasals: m, n. Great for low hums and sustained gutturals.
• Fricatives used sparingly: s, f, sh. These can disappear in a heavy wall of noise so use them for contrast rather than constant texture.
• Low vowels: ah, o, uh. They sit warmly in the chest and help the vocalist maintain power.

Replace words that will swallow on a growl. For example, the phrase the flesh unravels uses soft fricatives that can blur. Try something like bone gutters open which uses plosives and low vowels and keeps intelligibility during guttural attacks.

Rhyme, Internal Rhyme, and Flow

Slam lyrics often use internal rhyme and half rhyme to maintain momentum. Perfect end rhymes are fine but internal rhymes create the machine gun flow that matches rapid double kick patterns. Use consonant rhyme, vowel echo, and repeated syllables to keep the listener connected across riffs.

Examples

Internal rhyme: bone gutter, blood button, brake and break. The repeated b and g sounds make the lines feel connected and attackable.

Rhyme slanting: rot and rod, decay and day. Slant rhymes keep the voice raw and prevent the lyrics from sounding nursery rhyme obvious.

Line Length and Breath Management

A vocalist in slam can spit short bursts or long guttural blocks. Match your line length with the musical phrase and the singer's breathing. Here is a safe rule. Keep performance lines under 10 syllables for fast sections and under 18 syllables for slower chug sections. Those numbers are not law. They are a starting point. Test lines by having the vocalist perform them at rehearsal tempo. If they cough you shortened the line wrong.

How to map breaths

1. Write the line physically on the sheet with slashes marking where you expect a breath.
2. Have the vocalist speak the line at full volume without music. Mark where they naturally breathe.
3. Adjust words to give a window for a half second inhale if the line sits on a sustained note later.

Structure: Verses, Pre Chorus, Chorus, and Slam Tag

Slam songs are often riff driven. Lyrics should support riffs rather than demand melodrama. Use short verses to set the mood, a pre chorus to increase tension and create a rhythmic call, and a chorus that repeats a short phrase like a mantra. The slam tag is the moment for a short shout or chant that matches a breakdown riff.

Working templates

• Template A: Intro riff → Verse (3 lines) → Pre chorus (2 lines) → Chorus repeated → Slam tag → Verse 2 → Chorus → Breakdown → Chorus tag
• Template B: Cold open vocal phrase → Riff → Chorus mantra → Instrumental interlude → Verse → Chorus → Extended slam with chant repeats

Lyric Devices That Amp Impact

Use devices that translate into physical movement in the pit.

Ring phrase

Repeat a small chorus line at the start and end of the chorus so the crowd can chant it back. Examples: Rot return, Rot return. Put the ring phrase on a heavy downbeat.

Call and response

Short shouted line followed by a guttural response or a pig squeal. This works as a live moment and on records when mixed properly.

List escalation

Three images that increase intensity. Keep each item short and alliterative for maximum punch.

Before and After Lines

Theme: Mechanical decay

Before: The machine is broken and it drains everything.

After: Cogs cough, oil black, the chassis forgets to lock.

Theme: Cult ritual

Before: We spill blood for the ritual that takes us apart.

After: We chant the bell, the altar knows our names, we fall in rows.

Notice the after versions use shorter words, more plosives, and internal rhythm. They remain dark but avoid detailed gore. They also provide clear breath and performance points.

Write to the Riff

Never write lyrics in a vacuum and then force them onto the riff. Play the riff. Count the accents. Clap the rhythm. Tap the downbeats. Mark the strong guitar hits and align your lyric stress to them. If the riff has a stop every four hits, put the lyric tag or pig squeal there. That stop time is the slam moment and your words should either land there or set it up.

Method

1. Loop the riff for two minutes.
2. Speak nonsense on top of it using the rhythmic hits as anchors. Record your nonsense take.
3. Shape the nonsense into one or two-word tags that can be repeated.
4. Fill verse lines between the tags using the prosody rules above.

Non Graphic Imagery Tips

Graphic gore may be part of some metal lyric traditions. If you want extremity without graphic detail, lean on metaphor and sensory suggestion. Use words that imply without describing. The listener will fill the rest and imagination can be more extreme than detail. This also keeps your band safe for press, radio, and certain streaming editorial playlists that avoid explicit gore.

Examples of suggestive lines

• The city swallowed the sun like a final mouth
• Knuckles on the altar knocked until rust answered
• A clock ate its hands and kept on counting

Collaborating With Vocalists

Vocalists are athletes. Treat them like one. Send drafts early. Be explicit about tempo and where you expect hits. Provide the following in your lyric sheet

• Marked breaths
• Marked downbeats
• Suggested guttural note lengths
• Optional ad libs and pig squeal cues

Ask about their comfortable ranges and preferred vowel shapes. Some vocalists can sustain an open o for six seconds in a huge low growl. Some prefer short choked blasts. Your writing should play to their strengths.

Recording and Production Awareness

Producers will compress and EQ vocals. Low gutturals can get lost in a muddy mix unless carefully layered. Consider a two pass vocal recording. One pass for the mid low chest and one pass for upper presence. Use pairing sparingly. A well placed high rasp double can bring clarity to a line that otherwise disappears.

Production cues for writers

• If you want a line to punch, ask the producer to carve a small mid range bump during that word. This is often called an ear candy dip.
• If the chorus is a mantra, ask for tight gating on the kick and snare to make the consonants pop.
• Send tempo maps so the mixing engineer knows where the slam hits are. It helps align vocal automation to riff hits.

Common Slam Lyric Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Too many multisyllabic words. Replace them with fewer syllables and more consonant attack.
• Overly abstract language. Add at least one tactile object per verse. Objects create anchor images.
• Lines that cannot be breathed. Mark breath points and shorten lines.
• Sibilance heavy lines. Swap s sounds for b or k where possible. S sounds can smear under compression.
• No ring phrase. Create a short chantable phrase for the chorus that can be repeated live.

Exercises to Write Better Slam Lyrics

Vowel Drill

Choose a riff and sing only the vowel sounds on top of it for two minutes. Record. Mark three gestures that feel strongest. Turn those gestures into one word tags. Surround them with short lines.

Plosive Sandwich

Write one line that begins and ends with plosives. Example frame: Kick ... Kick. Replace the ellipsis with two or three words and keep attack at both ends.

The Object Rule

For each verse write one object and two actions. Keep each action under five syllables. Use those lines to show rather than tell.

Slam Tag Loop

Write a two word chorus that repeats four times. It must fit inside a two bar riff. Practice shouting it with different vowels until one sits best in the vocalist chest.

Sample Song Skeleton With Lyrics

Tempo: 90 BPM. Tuning: Drop lowest possible. Riff pattern: chug, stop, chug, hit. Vocal style: deep guttural with pig squeal accents.

Intro riff instrumental

Verse 1

Cogs cough on the floor

Salted bolts in the door

Hands count teeth on a shelf

Pre chorus

We call the name

We feed the flame

Chorus

Clockwork rot

Clockwork rot

Slam tag

Knock. Drop. Kill. Chant.

Keep this skeleton and swap words to match your theme. Note how lines are short, consonant heavy, and have clear breath points.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Extreme imagery can bump into real world harm if it targets protected groups or encourages violence. Avoid lyrics that incite specific acts against real people or that use hateful slurs. You can be brutal, transgressive, and confrontational without endorsing real world harm. Think of the voice as theatrical. Many classic metal songs use allegory and myth to explore dark themes without endorsing them.

How to Practice Fast and Finish Songs

Set a 25 minute timer. Round one pick a riff and a theme. Round two write a ring phrase and fill three verses with the object rule. Round three do a vowel pass and mark breaths. Round four test with the vocalist. Repeat the whole process once. This method forces choices and prevents polishing until you have something that works under pressure.

How to Make Slam Lyrics That People Remember

Memory is about repetition, rhythm, and a small standout image. Use a two word ring phrase the crowd can shout. Put it on the heaviest riff. Use one image per verse that is sensory and repeat that image or a fragment of it in the chorus. Performers should exaggerate the ring phrase in live shows until it becomes the crowd stamp.

FAQ

What is the difference between slam and brutal death metal

Slam focuses on slow to mid tempo crushing grooves and syncopated breakdowns called slams. Brutal death metal can be faster and more technical. Both share heaviness and harsh vocals. Slam narrows the palette to chug, stop, vocal punch and crowd movement.

How many syllables should a line have in slam

There is no hard rule. As a practical guideline keep fast section lines under 10 syllables and slower chug lines under 18 syllables. Always test with the vocalist at performance tempo. Adjust breath marks if the singer coughs.

Can I write gore free slam lyrics

Yes. Suggestive imagery and metaphor are often more effective than graphic detail. Fans will supply the intensity in their heads. It also increases press and playlist placement potential.

Do I need to be vulgar or obscene to write authentic slam

No. Authenticity comes from consistency and voice. You can be raw and uncompromising without relying on cheap shock. Focus on rhythm, performance, and strong imagery.

How do I make lyrics that a vocalist can perform live

Collaborate early. Mark breaths and downbeats. Use short, percussive words. Provide a demo with counts. Be open to cutting or rearranging lines after a rehearsal. Vocalists will tell you what sits right in their chest.

What vocal techniques should I know as a writer

Understand basic categories like low guttural, high rasp, and pig squeal. Know the strengths of your vocalist. Ask whether they prefer sustained notes or short bursts. These preferences inform line length and placement.

How do I avoid cliches in slam lyrics

Focus on unique objects, odd metaphors, and unexpected verbs. Replace easy adjectives with specific images. If a line could appear on a meme, rewrite it. If a line produces a clear camera shot, keep it.

Should I write lyrics before or after the riff

Start with the riff. Slam is rhythm driven. Use the riff to create the ring phrase and to determine line placement. You can draft thematic lines beforehand but anchor them to the riff later.

How do I make a chorus memorable in slam

Create a short chantable phrase, put it on the heaviest downbeats, repeat it, and give it a single unique image or word that fans can yell back. Keep it under four words if possible.