Written By Lucien Drake
Deep Cuts: Metal’s Hidden Gems are the bones beneath the beast’s skin. The hidden framework holding the genre together. These aren’t the tracks you blast on the main stage, they’re the ones you discover in the shadows.
Lurking on forgotten B-sides and buried deep in albums like cursed treasure, they’re jagged, unpolished, and unrepentant. Songs forged in sweaty rehearsals and born in moments too strange, heavy, or pure to ever hit mainstream.
The true lifeblood of metal isn’t just in the hits, it runs in the underground wells that only the dedicated drink from.
Deep Cuts Metals Hidden Gems are the songs traded like relics between diehards, passed along in hushed reverence. In this series, we dig through the dust, scrape the rust, and bring these hidden monsters to light. This week we are featuring staff picks. Ready to descend into the vault?
Obituary: In the End of Life – The End Complete (1992)
let’s dig into the morgue of Obituary’s discography. This is about as deep as you can get, buried under the shadow of the album’s title track. But “In the End of Life” is one of their most unsettling songs, with eerie doom passages that prove Obituary can make you feel death, not just headbang to it. There’s a suffocating weight to the riffs, like the air thickening in a mausoleum, pressing down with every note. It’s the sound of mortality slowed to a crawl, reminding you that Obituary doesn’t just play death metal they embody it.
Ryujin: Kunnecup – Ryujin (2024)
Ryujin may be a new name on the banners of battle, but this is no novice band. They’ve sharpened their steel for years under the moniker Gyze. On their 2024 self-titled debut, the cut that gleams brightest in the shadows isn’t one of the obvious singles, but the breathtaking “Kunnecup.” Here, the Japanese samurai spirit collides with classical gravitas, as cellist Mukai Wataru of the Kansai Philharmonic weaves haunting lines through Ryoji’s storm of riffs. The result is a piece that feels less like a song and more like a requiem, part ballad, part war hymn, steeped in melancholy beauty. It’s proof that Ryujin’s sword doesn’t just slash with fury, it carves with elegance, etching their legacy in something eternal.
Dawn of Ouroboros: Poseidon’s Hymn – Bioluminescence (2025)
If you want to sound like someone who didn’t just skim the highlights of Bioluminescence, drop “Poseidon’s Hymn.” It’s not the flashy title track or jazzy standout. This one’s more like the ocean’s hidden trench, atmospheric, symphonic, and eerily precise. Here, churning ambient textures and electronic coloration seep into blackened riffs with clarity, weaving an immersive soundscape that demands more than headbanging. It demands immersion. This isn’t just Dawn of Ouroboros playing heavy, they’re composing underwater worlds that glow with quiet menace.
Arch Enemy: Shadows and Dust – Wages of Sin (2001)
We’ve unearthed a deep cut from Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow era. Something that screams “I’ve dug deeper.”
Right when Wages of Sin seems to bow out gracefully, “Shadows and Dust” creeps in like a viper lying in wait. It’s not the anthem that gets shouted. This is the album’s unsung final strike, with molten riffs that shimmer in the darkness and Angela Gossow’s voice curling into the shadows like smoke. It’s the kind of track that doesn’t scream for attention but once you let it wrap around your neurons, it haunts you. A deep cut that does more than just deliver on the signature Arch Enemy sound, it damns it into your memory.
Voivod: Jack Luminous – The Outer Limits (1993)
Every band has a hidden skeleton key, the track that unlocks their essence but almost no one talks about. For Voivod, that key is “Jack Luminous.” At 17 minutes long, it’s less a song and more a sci-fi epic beamed straight from another galaxy. The riffs twist like melting circuitry, the rhythms fold in on themselves like collapsing wormholes, and Snake takes on the role of interstellar storyteller. This isn’t thrash for the pit, it’s prog-metal theater staged in the void, complete with the kind of ambition that scared the hell out of record labels in the early ’90s.
Here’s the thing, nobody brings this one up at parties. It’s too weird, too long, too much for the casual listener. And that’s exactly why I love it. “Jack Luminous” is Voivod pushing the dial past what’s comfortable, showing just how far out they were willing to go when most bands were playing it safe. It’s rare because it demands patience, attention, and a taste for the bizarre.
And let me say this: if you can sit through all 17 minutes without drifting off into your own orbit, welcome, you’re officially part of the cult. Most people won’t make it. But if you do, you’ll come out the other side changed, glowing with that strange energy only Voivod can summon. For me, this isn’t just a deep cut, it’s proof that the weirdest corners of metal are often the most rewarding.
Flotsam and Jetsam: Date with Hate – Cuatro bonus track(1992)
Let me cut to the chase. “Date with Hate” is a Deep Cuts upper-tier hidden gem. This one wasn’t on the main album, it’s the stealth spawn of Cuatro, drifting in those bonus track limbo zones where only true diggers go looking.
Musically? Think early Flotsam venom grinding riffs with that raw edge, Eric A.K. snarling through a narrative that feels like a secret ritual in audio form. I’ve heard it called “awesome” and “rare,”and that’s enough for me. I love it because it’s not curated for playlists. It’s hidden like a coded message from thrash’s underbelly.
So here’s the deal: if you ever shuffle into “Date with Hate” and say, “Whoa, where did that come from?”, you’ll know you’ve entered cult territory. And that, my friend, is exactly where I like to roam.
Disincarnate: Stench of Paradise Burning – Dreams of the Carrion Kind (1993)
There are deep cuts, and then there are tracks like “Stench of Paradise Burning.”The kind of song whispered about in the catacombs of death metal history. Disincarnate only gave us one album, 1993’s Dreams of the Carrion Kind, but what an album it was. Technical, suffocating, and ahead of its time. Led by James Murphy (ex–Death, Obituary, Cancer), the band crafted a record so dense with atmosphere and feral precision that it still holds up as a cult classic thirty years later.
“Stench of Paradise Burning” is the track that perfectly encapsulates that legacy. The riffs crawl like maggots through a rotting temple, intricate yet barbaric, while Murphy’s lead guitar work shreds with surgical venom. It’s a song that never got the spotlight, but it should have because buried inside its ugliness is a strange beauty, the kind only death metal can conjure.
This is one of those rare gems I gravitate to because it’s unapologetically extreme. It doesn’t care if you’re along for the ride. It’s raw, unsettling, and atmospheric in a way that makes most “modern tech death” sound polished and sterile by comparison. And that’s why I love it, because it feels alive in its decay.
If you want to separate the tourists from the lifers in your circle, drop “Stench of Paradise Burning.” Those who know will nod in approval. Those who don’t? They’ve just been handed a map to one of death metal’s forgotten temples.
Ulvehunger: Subjugated – Retaliation (2024)
If you’re just stumbling across Ulvehunger’s Retaliation in the underground metal feeds, consider yourself lucky. This sophomore level lineup: L.J. Balvaz, K.B. Fletcher, Frost, and Anders Odden came out of nowhere and dropped a blackened death metal juggernaut that snarls and seduces in equal measure.
Every album has that one track. The one that slips between the cracks while everyone else is arguing over the singles and the grand finale. On Ulvehunger’s Retaliation, that ghost is “Subjugated.”
No reviews hype it, no fans cite it, and that’s exactly why it belongs here. It’s a lean, vicious cut that doesn’t bother with theatrics, just frostbitten riffing, Balvaz’s venomous bark, and Frost hammering the kit like he’s carving runes into the abyss. While “Desecrator” and “Covenant of Pestilence” soak up the spotlight, “Subjugated” seethes in the shadows, waiting for someone with the patience (or obsession) to notice its quiet brutality.
Personally? I love it because it’s unassuming but relentless. It doesn’t scream for attention, it demands you come to it. And that’s what a hidden gem is all about, digging past the obvious to find the track that feels like it was left there just for you.
Ved Buens Ende: Remembrance of Things Past – Written in Waters (1995)
If there’s one song that proves Ved Buens Ende weren’t just playing black metal, they were warping its DNA, it’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” Even on an album as strange as Written in Waters, this track stands out as the fever dream among nightmares. The riffs don’t march, they lurch; the vocals don’t scream, they slither. It feels less like a song and more like being dragged through fragments of a half remembered dream where nothing resolves, but everything lingers.
This is the kind of track most people skip right over in confusion, which is exactly why Im drawn to it. There’s no easy payoff here, no anthem to chant, just dissonance, atmosphere, and the unnerving sensation that you’re listening to black metal cracked open and infected with jazz, doom, and some unnamable third element. It’s haunting in a way that no blast beat could ever be.
Here’s my take: if you can listen to “Remembrance of Things Past” and enjoy its fractured beauty, you’ve crossed over. You’ve stopped listening for comfort and started listening for confrontation. And isn’t that what the best hidden gems are about? Not giving you what you want, but daring you to want something you didn’t even know existed.
Necrophagist: Seven – Onset of Putrefaction (1999)
Everyone knows Necrophagist for the jaw dropping tech death standards “Stabwound,” and “Fermented Offal Discharge.” The riffs that launched a thousand guitar YouTube covers. But if you stop there, you’re only skimming the surface. The real treasure hides deeper, and for me, that jewel is “Seven.”
Buried on their 1999 debut Onset of Putrefaction, “Seven” is a track that doesn’t get name dropped in tech death arguments or plastered across social media. And yet, it’s everything that made Necrophagist legendary with scalpel precise riffs, impossible sweep picking, and blast beats that hit like surgical drills. What I love is that, unlike the anthems, “Seven” doesn’t try to show off, it just is. It’s raw, vicious, and strangely overlooked.
Here’s the kicker, Necrophagist only gave us two albums, then vanished into myth, which makes every song precious. But “Seven” is special because it feels like the secret track in their discography. The one you don’t stumble on unless you actually sit through the whole record. That’s the point of a deep cut, isn’t it? Not the song that gets you into the band, but the one that keeps you there.
Missed last week’s Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems? Unearth it here.”
FAQ – Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems
Q: What is Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems?
A: Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems is Metal Lair’s weekly feature that uncovers rare, overlooked songs in metal. Each edition explores hidden treasures from classic albums, bonus tracks, and cult bands.
Q: Which bands are featured in Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems?
A: Bands featured include legends like Obituary, Voivod, Necrophagist, and Arch Enemy, along with rising cult names such as Dawn of Ouroboros, Ulvehunger, and Ved Buens Ende.
Q: Why are these tracks considered hidden gems?
A: These songs are deep cuts because they’re rarely discussed, often overshadowed by more popular tracks, or only found on special editions and forgotten releases.
Q: How often is Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems updated?
A: Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems is updated weekly with a new selection of rare tracks for metal fans to discover.
Q: Where can I find past editions of Deep Cuts: Metals Hidden Gems?
A: You can find past editions by browsing the Metal Lair archives or following internal links included in each week’s feature.
