Hackneyed

In 2007 the German outfit Hackneyed came together, its members then averaging between 14 and 16 years old and thereby becoming perhaps the youngest death-metal act ever offered a recording deal. Their first album, Death Prevails, appeared on Nuclear Blast the next year, performed by vocalist Philipp Mazal, guitarists Felix Papp and Devin Cox, bassist Alex “iX” Büttner, and drummer Tim Cox—all of them German despite the English stage names. The group delivers an especially brutal strain of death metal that draws primary influence from Cannibal Corpse and Decapitated yet also ventures at times into grindcore or passages layered with atmospheric synthesizers.