World Downfall is regarded as one of the most influential grindcore albums ever: it showcases crunchy, heavily distorted guitar riffs and extremely fast and precise blast beats in addition to growling, harsh vocals and lyrics dealing with social issues, features that would become a standard among grindcore music, as of the cover art, which is similar to Napalm Death's Scum depicting a collage of Islamic terrorists, nuclear power plant, dead bodies and Jesus rising. About a third of the songs were actually Nausea material, the previous band of vocalist Oscar Garcia. The album was released in 1989 when the band had already split up, with Jesse Pintado joining Napalm Death, and Pete Sandoval joining Morbid Angel. David Vincent was not an original member of Terrorizer but filled in on bass due to his connection to Sandoval in Morbid Angel, because their original bassist Alfred "Garvey" Estrada was in jail at the time.