Death - Live in L.A. Death & Raw (2001)

Remaining objective about an album like Live in L.A. (Death & Raw) can be a difficult thing for me While I don't care for the album itself due to the rather miserable track listing, it was released for a decent cause (to help Chuck Schuldiner raise proceeds for his fight with brain cancer) and has at least an audible production which is accurate to the band's performances during this period. It's one of those rare cash grabs which is actually for a GOOD reason, but at the same time it offers fans a long awaited, official live offering. Kudos to Schuldiner for not taking advantage of his rabid fan base many years earlier. He could have released a live album every six months since 19991 and devotees would have gobbled each up like starving robins on a trail of bread crumbs.

As its title implicates, Death & Raw was recorded on the West Coast in December of 1998, when Death was a few months out from The Sound of Perseverance, touring with that lineup (Hamm, Christy, and Clendenin). Unfortunately, this means its heavy on newer material, as we had yet to reach the point where classic metal bands focused on their classics (though for a handful of the faithful, you'd think Perseverance was the Second Coming). It's not all that bad, there are but three new tracks in the set: "Scavenger of Human Sorrow", "Spirit Crusher" and "Flesh and the Power It Holds", but I must say I got nothing more from them than I had on the studio album. Symbolic is more thoroughly represented, with "Crystal Mountain", "Zero Tolerance", "Empty Words" and the title track; while Individual Thought Patterns and Human each get a pair ("The Philosopher", "Trapped in a Corner", "Suicide Machine", "Together As One"). Sadly this leaves only two slots in the 13-track list to cover the first three fucking albums! Yes, the classic DEATH metal albums are represented only by "Pull the Plug" (Leprosy) and "Zombie Ritual" (Scream Bloody Gore). A damned travesty, and I don't care how 'forward thinking' Chuck was, Spiritual Healing is completely absent!

That's a pretty big gripe when wants to experience excitement through a live recording, but recognizing the fact that Schuldiner probably wasn't interested in the least in his older material, I guess I should be happy that even those two made the cut. Or, I would be, if they sounded the least bit entertaining. Chuck was using his more torn throat vocals by this point, sounding almost like a black metal rasp, and it simply does not sound fluid with the formative songs, or even "Suicide Machine". The least affected tracks are those from Symbolic, which are more melodic and sparse enough to bear the shift in his tone; or The Sound of Perseverance, since the vocals sounded similar in the studio. As for the rest of the mix, its raw and functional, but nothing special at all. The drums are rather loud and poppy, and the guitars felt too compressed and distant, though the leads carry through decently. I've already mentioned the vocals, and they sound a bit hacked, and Clendenin's clunky bass lines rarely stand out against the guitars.

Live albums are supposed to be the next best thing to being there, and I can't accurately claim that Death & Raw provides this experience. It's by no means an awful recording, but it leaves much to be desired, more like a glorified bootleg than a legendary live. The 'raw' in the title is no joke, but neither does it benefit Death's sound. As a token of appreciation for one of your icons, to help him battle his life threatening illness, it was worth the coin. You were getting something in return for your labors, a positive idea all around. But as a standalone live release, it just does not cut it, and I found little to no satisfaction in the content itself.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.emptywords.org/

Death - Live in Eindhoven '98 (2001)

Live in Eindhoven was released only a few weeks after Live in L.A. (Death & Raw), so presumably this was also used to generate some funds for Chuck's ongoing struggle with cancer. There is a DVD for this also (I believe one for its predecessor too), so I will immediately recommend that everyone interested just focus in on that and skip the audio only release, since there is just not much value to it coming so close after the other release. Still, if you were all for funneling the money to the ailing musical legend, it would be something purchased sight unseen strictly for the assistance it was providing. Hell, even if Nuclear Blast wasn't giving him a large share of the proceeds, he was at least getting the usual percentage and royalties, right?

The problem is that this Dynamo Open Air gig has the same lineup and same general track list as found on Live in L.A. (Death & Raw). The difference is that "Lack of Comprehension" and "Flattening of Emotions" have been included, and the following removed for the shorter set: "Zombie Ritual", "Scavenger of Human Sorrow", "Empty Words", and the title track from Symbolic. It's not much of a better set, though they fuck around with the finale "Pull the Plug" less than the other live album, and I felt that the sound quality here was evenly balanced, if still pretty raw and lacking. The vocals are a tad less grating, the guitars and drums better mixed, and I can hear the bass lines better even when the dual axes are sounding off. In all, I felt a fraction of more potent excitement than I did listening through the other, but I have to question its overall use when we'd just been bombarded with such a similar product.

What would have been excellent would have been if the band and labels had dug through the band's history and given us a CLASSIC live album from the Ultimate Revenge 2 years, or an earlier tour. Surely there were a wealth of bootlegs and soundboard recordings to cull from? Now that would have been something, offering the fans two choices: a modern lineup and an old school rendering. I would have plunked the money down on that instantaneously, and I'm sure others would have appreciated the same. In the end though, this is just another release you're going to snatch up to support the artist as opposed to expecting much throughput of the content, and in this case it's safer just to grab the DVD so you're getting the video component.

Verdict: Fail [4.75/10]

http://www.emptywords.org/

Death - The Sound of Perseverance (1998)

Since I seem to have survived the rash of stabbing and car bombing attempts that surrounded my lukewarm reception to Death's well regarded 1991 effort Human, I must once again cast myself into the maw of reckless endangerment by discussing the band's final studio effort, The Sound of Perseverance. I admit to some exaggeration here, because this is perhaps the most divisive of Schuldiner's albums among the general populace, but like Human, I've known numerous individuals who consider it to be some unquestionable pinnacle of musical achievement (individuals, who, in my humble opinion, clearly need to listen to quite a broader range of output before speaking such lies). At its very best, The Sound of Perseverance is a weak admixture of the past three full-lengths. At its worst, its ridden with underwhelming thrash rhythms, competent but forgettable leads, and a mediocre cover song that shows where Chuck's thoughts were TRULY at when he decided to unleash this about the audience.

Those ruminations were already several cups deep in the planning of Control Denied, a side project in which Schuldiner was highly excited, for which he had written a humdrum hybrid of power and progressive metal. The Sound of Perseverance is really just a bridge spanning the possibilities between the poles of Symbolic and The Fragile Art of Existence, which he wanted to get out of the way before moving his attention to that newer outlet. As was the Death tradition, he wrangled up a new lineup for the experience, this time, entirely (even Hoglan took a break). He brought in his Control Denied co-conspirators Shannon Hamm (guitar), Scott Clendenin (bass) and Richard Christy (drums), all competent enough in their roles. In particular, Christy kicks up a storm here. I could seriously just turn off the vocals and guitars and listen to the man batter away. His dynamics are one of the few components of this album that prevent it from the status of a stupefying bore.

Otherwise, it's mostly business as usual. The same thin, punchy processing of guitar tone that was present upon Human, Individual Thought Patterns, and Symbolic. The same inherent level of variation throughout the song structures. The same taut expression of glimmering, spiral leads and muted melodic patterning. Only this time, there is a dearth of inspiration. Not a single song on this album is fit to shine the loafers of even the weakest fraction of Symbolic. Tracks like "Flesh and the Power it Holds", "Scavenger of Human Sorrow", "Story to Tell" are all bloated masses of familiarity, stringy progressive death cycling through a wealth of tempos and tribulations, but falling well short of riffs that I'd ever want to hear again. The jangling grooves that inaugurate "A Moment of Clarity" seem curious at first, but the song soon devolves into a mire of pernicious ruin, offering not even the slightest step beyond the studio precedents. And you can forget about there being even one single 'evil' riff drawn from the cauldron of the band's grisly past, a feat that even the other 90s efforts were capable of pulling off.

But there are two further aspects of The Sound of Perseverance that ensure its position at the bottom rung of this band's career ladder. The first is that Chuck's vocals had become incredibly feline and bitchy throughout this album, almost like a little girl. It's the same general direction as he'd been moving towards through the previous decade, but somewhere between 1995 and 1998 the guy's bluejeans must have been pulled all too tight. It occasionally borders on the black metal rasp prevalent throughout that scene, only more 'emotional', if that makes sense. He sounds like the teamster boss for a union of kittens, crying over sour milk. Takes a bit of getting used to, and as the music does little for me as it stands, I do not intend on getting used to them. And then we come to the unfortunate cover of Judas Priest's "Painkiller", which I suspect is Chuck testing the waters for Control Denied more than anyone might have thought at the time, even though it's a bonus track, supposedly just here for fun. Not a bad choice, mind you, but Death fails to evoke anything interesting in its execution, just a clinical walkthrough, only the leads have been dried out and fall flat on their asses next to the Downing/Tipton originals, which soared.

If I had to pick just one song on The Sound of Perseverance that I immediately feel no urge to skip past, it would have to be "Bite the Pain", and only because it sounds like a Symbolic outtake. The dodgy bass in the bridge, and the choppy mutes that accompany the lead around 2:00 are the only value I've ever gotten from the album in over a decade, aside from Christy's percussion. Even the lyrics are weak, if not thoughtless. This all feels like a massive step sideways and back, a peripheral voyage to Individual Thought Patterns or Symbolic that forgot to pack all the good music into its cargo hold. The Sound of Perseverance makes Human shine in comparison. Hell, even the Control Denied full-length has more to offer, and since this would turn out to be Death's swan song (Chuck sadly succumbing to brain cancer in 2001 after a long struggle), it seems even more a disappointment in retrospect. The album isn't complete shit, but to these ears it felt wholly anticlimactic after Schuldiner had managed to sharpen the 'second phase' of Death to a razor-fine edge with the previous two releases.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10] (not a drop of blood is drawn)

http://www.emptywords.org/

Death - Symbolic (1995)

Having showed a marked improvement in the band's progressive, sophomore decade, Individual Thought Patterns was substantial enough that I took the stick out of my ass and came to terms with where Death was headed for the future: the car wash. Symbolic is the third and most potent work of this phase in Schuldiner's career, and yet its remarkable less complicated than its predecessor. In fact, I often have a difficult time describing this as a 'death metal' album whatsoever. It's more like a clinical, hard hitting thrash album with dynamic drums, savvy leads, and the development of Chuck's voice into a slightly pinched, higher range that was not exactly unexpected after hearing Human or Individual Thought Patterns.

This is honestly the least interesting of Death's efforts from a conceptual standpoint. The lyrics continue along the social and psychological strata the band had been exploring for the past half decade, further removed from the morbid ministrations of their formative gore stores. Much of the composition here is incredibly simple, but damn if it doesn't sound great on headphones or erupting out of just about any stereo I play it through. Jim Morris did a remarkable job here, as well as the mastering team. The guitars feel rich and fulfilling despite only a mild margin from those of Human, and the writing gives the Gene Hoglan plenty of room to breathe. I found myself paying attention to his kicks and fills more than almost anything else I've heard him play on. Rounding out the band this time, Schuldiner decide to go with a pair of lower profile musicians: Bobby Koelbe on the guitar and Kelly Conlon on the bass. Regardless, the duo are rather well suited into this game of musical chairs, complementary to the actions of the star percussionist and composer.

It doesn't hurt that most of the songs are quite good, with a few in particular numbering among the best of their 90s stint and arguably their career. "Without Judgement" is incredibly well plotted, with some thrashing grooves in the verse not unlike "In Human Form", surviving a wealth of variation, including the resonant, penetrating leads in the bridge. "Crystal Mountain" has a strong charging aesthetic that cedes into subdued, catchy bass lines and glittering strings of cleaner tone, with a jamming mystique to its closing moments. Closer to their work on Leprosy and Spiritual Healing, we have "1,000 Eyes"; and "Misanthrope" builds memorable momentum, with subtle and fetching chord progressions throughout the verse.

I'm not sure that the epic 8+ minute finale "Perennial Quest" is the strongest example here, as I tend to zone out through a number of the transitions; and "Symbolic" itself is not an incredibly entertaining opener for the effort, but the remainder of the songs ("Zero Tolerance", "Sacred Serenity" and "Empty Words") are all a study in polished contrasts of surgical aggression and accessible prog rock leads. To tell the truth, there are probably only a half dozen rhythms or individual guitar riffs on the entirety of Symbolic that are revelatory in quality, much less than any of the first three albums when Death were performing their more grisly fare. Hell, there are less standout riffs probably than Individual Thought Patterns. Yet the arrangements are almost unanimously excellent, balanced and all too easy to get lost in, not to mention accessible.

I will gladly bear the banner of dissent when it comes to the majority stance on Death's catalog, vastly favoring the years of Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy to anything that has come since, because those albums created a creepy, unforgettable presence with amazingly cool riffs that simply have never been replaced in the genre that they helped birth. But there can be no doubt that the philosophical prose, progressive influence and friendlier, bring home to mom gloss of Death 2.0 was slowly ascending the ladder of quality, to peak upon Symbolic and then fall off dramatically with the anticlimactic drivel that was The Sound of Perseverance. Schuldiner was bent on expanding his work into a cross-stream that could taken be taken seriously by fans of rock, thrash, and subscribers to guitar magazines. Here was a way to do it without sacrificing quality nor intelligence. The last Death worth a damn.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (yet at the same time, we're invisible)

http://www.emptywords.org/

Death - Individual Thought Patterns (1993)

As much as I wish I might have sawed off and cauterized Chuck Schuldiner's legs around 1989, then kept him locked in a basement prison on a diet of human entrails and cheap horror films, there was simply not going to be any looking back for the Florida musician as he set his ambitions and aspirations anew for each full-length effort. That aside, the man definitely worked upon plateaus of creativity, rather than steep peaks and gorges, and the majority of his output consisted of two primary 'trilogies' or phases (excepting The Sound of Perseverance, which I'll likely complain about at great length elsewhere). Individual Thought Patterns represents the 'bridge' edition of the second trilogy, refining the concepts behind Human by extrapolating better songs from their nebulous midst.

Sure, many lavish such praise upon that fourth disc that one might think it was an evolutionary stopgap in human existence, but it takes only a single track from its successor to stifle such a misrepresentation, the all too aptly titled "Overactive Imagination". Here we experience all of the processed sterility of the 'New Death' of the 90s, sculpted into a more durable, memorable pattern of notes alternated between the jerkiness of the verse and the scalding momentum of its transitions. Schuldiner had once again acquired new musicians to help mold his visions: Sean Reinert and Paul Masvidal of Cynic replaced with King Diamond stalwart Andy La Rocque and thrashing thunder god Gene Hoglan (Dark Angel, World Wars I and II, the battle of Ragnarok, etc). Both get to work quite early here, with Hoglan's strength granting the recording a more formidable backbone than Death had ever possessed in the past, and LaRocque's considerable lead skill grafting a warmth and immortality to the solos here that simply crush those of Human.

Retained here: Steve DiGiorgio, who it turns out is the perfect counterweight to the new duo and Chuck's meticulous dynamic sensibility, fingers strutting along the fat strings as if their own existence were dependent on it. From "Overactive Imagination" we shift unto the more glorious "In Human Form" with its arching, credible verse patterns that cede to the most 'death metal' riff on the album at :40, adjoined to a beautiful, eerie solo. So far, Individual Thought Patterns has proven just as enduring as the 1990 effort Spiritual Healing, but will the good fortune hold? Yes and no. For the most part, the material here is heavily front-loaded, and I've long held the first four tracks to be the best of the litter, including the acrobatic variation of "Jealousy" with its thick streams of bass and the majestic climes of the bridge; and the provocative "Trapped in a Corner" for the progressive, spacey fusion burrowed in its depths, very much a reflection of what the band had sought out to achieve with Human.

For the rest, I feel it's quite possible to pick out a few strengths and leave the remainder on the cutting room floor. "The Philosopher" is perhaps the best known of its tracks, having boasted a grim video and a rollicking, rolling mosh ethic in its verse that had limbs flying about on the band's touring, but I've never considered it incredibly memorable. I enjoy the business and the atmospheric elements of "Mentally Blind", but despite its diversity, it reeks of 'kindly get to the damned point'. "Destiny" offers us a tranquil 30 seconds of calm before it folds into the clutter of aggression, but nothing else of interest really happens until the lead and choppy bridge melodies. I quite enjoy the charging emotions behind the title track. The taut velocity often thrust into "Out of Touch". The schizoid glaze of the guitars in "Nothing is Everything". None of these are top billing, but they're easily the measure of my favorite Human tracks like "Suicide Machine".

Not sure if it's the change in musicians, or simply that Schuldiner was better able to flesh out his ideas for this record, but it's a noted improvement from its stagnant 1991 sibling. A revelation that not all will be lost in this creative transition from the pungent pits of gore to the social consciousness conveyed through the lyrics. This has essentially the same Scott Burns mix as the last album, if marginally more potent (though I would also attribute this to the superior structure of the songs). The songs are not all equally memorable, but the majority have at least something of value within their clinical carapaces. Individual Thought Patterns marks a steady escalation in qualiy that would persist through the following album, Symbolic, and though I'd never choose this over my beloved Leprosy or Scream Bloody Gore, it'll do in a pinch.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (flesh and eyes mean nothing)

http://www.emptywords.org/

Death - Fate: The Best of... (1992)

I've already gone on about Relativity's debauchery with my review of Dark Angel's Decade of Chaos compilation, but the California thrash cult is not the only artist to receive such a worthless tribute in that label's hands after they acquired much of the Combat roster. Naturally, Death would see some exploitation, being that Chuck and company were one of the hottest and better selling acts to make the transfer, and the result is Fate: The Best of Death, an absolute waste of plastic and print that should never have passed through the lips of any womb, corporate or artistic. As you have guessed, this is nothing more than reprinted tracks from the first four albums of the band's catalog, with some added liner notes (gee thanks).

Let's be perfectly blunt about this: Death fans fucking love Death, and by this point unless they were nursing a crack or heroin addiction they had likely accrued the funds, even via a paper route or Saturday morning lawn mowing gig, to purchase all of the band's prior material. Their new home distribution center, Relativity might have realized this and then worked with the band to produce a decent collection. After all, this band had a huge number of demos and rehearsal material leading up to their Combat signing, and a few strings pulled for permission might have netted us some 2xCD set that would be well worth owning. Instead, in some blatant attempt to rob the dregs of naivety, they chose instead to reprint 10 tracks that all but the suckers were already in possession of: "Zombie Ritual", "Mutilation" and "Baptized in Blood" from Scream Bloody Gore; "Left to Die", "Open Casket" and "Left to Die" from Leprosy; "Altering the Future" and the title track from Spiritual Healing; and "Together as One" and "Suicide Machine" from their then-latest, Human. So basically 10/34 of their songs to that point.

Is it an amazingly representative track list? In so far as it contains a fair spread of material that favors the earlier (better) albums, it could be worse. But then, what is the point? Few if any fans of this band had an interesting hovering below pure obsession, and anyone new to their sound would be far more rewarded by pursuing any of their full-lengths than this, even Human which was creating circle jerks among the underground (though I found it a disappointment). This was made for nothing else than filling the coffers and fueling the corporate record industry schema, and it has absolutely zero value to anyone with a grain of sense. Why not just print a greatest hits album for every Death record, with the same track lists mixed up in order of preference by some shill? Could have made four times the money, for four times the garbage. Remastered or not, this sucks. Curse such greasy cash ins and all who support them.

Verdict: Epic Fail [0/10]

http://www.myspace.com/deathofficial

Death - Human (1991)

In all the years I've listened to metal, through all of its mutations, there are few cases where I've felt so at odds with the 'majority' as with Death's fourth full-length Human. I have a number of friends and acquaintances who honestly feel this is the greatest album of all time. Accolades have been written from here to kingdom come and back again, and in lieu of Chuck Schuldiner's tragic passing it has vaulted into even more of a concrete classic status. I suppose here is the point at which I could just claim that they're all full of shit, that it's some kind of conspiracy, 'Body Snatchers', whine like an infant and then go grab some lunch, but it's not that simple. Because Human does not suck. It is not the product of effortless self-preservation, nor a brain addled deviation of form. It is not crass or commercial. It is not a sell out. And it is not uninspired, nor uninspiring.

What it is, is a progression gone awry. A sacrifice of ghastly mood and virtue for ambition. But more importantly, it's a fairly underwhelming piece of music from a band that had to this point been frankly fucking awesome. As early as Leprosy, Death's conceptual motivation (and lyrics) had swerved subtly to a more philosophical standpoint on mortality, which was then brought into social and technological, cultural relevance through Spiritual Healing. In fact, you could see the transition to Human from a mile away. Knowing Chuck's motivations to grow and evolve the terrain of his musical alter ego, it was inevitable. Hints of the sound here were seasoned across Spiritual Healing: a thinner, more processed and by extension less powerful guitar tone, less festering or effective vocal tones, and more frequent flights of instrumental fancy. The 'death' metal that I so loved from the earlier works still survives here, but it's rapidly becoming the subtext of the band's dynamic, rather than its foremost aspect.

With Scream Bloody Gore I had a bloody good time; Leprosy was a genuinely creepy, beautiful and brutal experience; Spiritual Healing less so, but still had the songwriting that hung out in my skull years later. Human is the first case in memory in which I felt I could surgically extract a few individual riffs and feed the rest as scraps to the hounds. But not only does this album mark a shift in aesthetics, but also in how Chuck would select musicians to work among. In what might seem a fit of abashed elitist snobbery, he had begun a revolving door of musicians here that would continue through the rest of Death's career. Bill Andrews, Rick Rozz and Terry Butler had turned towards the lackluster Massacre with another former Death-ite (Kam Lee); so a bevy of technically fluent individuals had been hired on to 'flesh out' this excursion. Steve DiGiorgio of Sadus for the bass guitar. Cynic members Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert for the guitar and drum slots. An impressive quartet as far as individual musical proficiency is concerned, a 'Dream Team' like one might send to the Olympics. So then, why does this album supplant the charm of its predecessors which such a dry, mechanical, mediocre sensation?

Thankfully, Human does not abandon all of the band's prior assertions. "Flattening of Emotions" opens with some tinny sounding muted death and a good number of robotic transitions, spliced in its depths with easily forgotten wanking. I think the only part of this song I enjoyed was the sad current of melody beneath the chorus. "Suicide Machine" is better, perhaps the closest this CD gets to what I so loved on the older albums, with a few creepy old school death rhythms (the chorus) and slices of eerie if predictable melodies. Still, though, the notation here is simply not as morbid and memorable as what had come before. I enjoy the driven, death metal break of the "Together as One" verse, with DiGiorgio plunking all over it and Reinert as taut and puckered as a newly molded sphincter, but I found myself caring less about any of the remaining riffs here. Ditto for the entirety of "Secret Face", which I had entirely forgotten until I dusted off the album to prepare this review.

"Lack of Comprehension" is initially promising due to the desperate interaction of vocals and rhythm, but outside of that opening riff and the mosh breakdown at 1:30 with the frenzied guitar accompaniment its like a boring philosophy lecture, and I'd have to say the same for "Vacant Planets" and "See Through Dreams", with the exception of that epic, melodic swerve at about :50 in the latter. Of course, we also have "Cosmic Sea" the first outright instrumental found on the Death studio albums, and probably the one track on this album that I would actually spin the disc for. The guitars create a meandering scar-scape of sadness and beauty, and I enjoy the synthesizer sounds utilized in the backdrop. The leads are impressive, especially when they start warping through wormholes around 3:30, and DiGiorgio also fashions some mesmerizing effects to anchor the cosmic convocation.

All in all, the tone to this album is arguably its most crippling feature. Scott Burns mixed it, and I'd be lying to say it was one of his finer moments. Razor thin and very much devoid of power. In fact, had this been executed with bolder guitars in mind, and less of a nerdy modernism in the processing of the distortion, the same songs might be somewhat more potent. Not that the actual riffs are exemplary, but they're ironically more mechanistic and less 'human'. Post-human, if you will, as if some band of A.I. infused automata mining Jupiter caught wind of some Spiritual Healing broadcasts and decided to creature a 'spiritual' successor to that album. Hypocritically, I don't mind this diffused digitization so much on the following works Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic. But only because I like the songs on those records more than these.

I have given Human more second chances, third chances, and twenty seventh chances than almost any other record I own, but each time I return to explore it I am left wanting. I've found the material to also be dull in the stage setting a number of times I've seen the band (once even opening for them at Salisbury Beach where a lot of booked tours came through), though they always compensated with older tunes. I'm certainly not opposed to progression in my music: the two other 'major' prog/jazz/death albums of 1991 sat rather well with me (Unquestionable Presence, Testimony of the Ancients). Human is elegant, and never rushed, but neither is it an exciting listen. It's not the worst of the Death efforts, but I'm simply not hard wired to appreciate it beyond a handful of the riffs and lyrics. To me, the Death I truly loved dissolved the year prior, not that Chuck was ever going to brook a wrench in the gears of his evolving musical landscape, but I wouldn't have been opposed to keep him penned up for a few more DEATH metal albums.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (see things that are not there)

http://www.myspace.com/deathofficial

Death - Spiritual Healing (1990)

Conceptually, Spiritual Healing feels as if Chuck Schuldiner had emerged from the creepy catacombs of its predecessors, grabbed himself an ice cold lemonade and taken a look around the world for once. The lyrics of this album deal less in the sheer thanatopsis of Leprosy than its present environment, or the plausible technological nightmare scenarios of our shared future. Naturally, this shortens the shadows of morbidity that previously hovered over the writing, and lengthens the band's relevancy against the backdrop of popular thrash metal, but I was quite pleasantly surprised that Chuck could still tear out a truly devious riff or two. This is also what I'd deem the 'Earth' phase for death. No longer was the listener being dragged through the rot infested sub cellars of pestilent horror (which I for one had no problem with), but Schuldiner's ambitions had yet to carry him among the clouds and beyond...

But first, they would carry him to the mercenary James Murphy, who supplants Rick Rozz here with ease. Terry Butler, while credited on the previous album as bassist, actually performs the instrument here, joining Bill Andrews' steady rock-inclined drumming. You can hear a mild difference in the guitars, armored with more muscular melodies than Leprosy, but I would not say that this is necessarily a technical superior to the sophomore; in fact I didn't often experience the same haunted exhilaration as two years prior. This is yet another Scott Burns mix job, a name that would become synonymous with not only Florida death metal but the scene at large, but as opposed to the uneven sound of Deicide or The Ten Commandments, here he seems spot fucking on. The guitars are a crisp, balanced pair of knives that deliver each surgical spike of brilliance with certainty, and the drums, bass and vocals are all stirred appropriately to carry their weight, without ever sacrificing their individual strengths.

Songs. Death still possessed them in spades, and this is the last of what I'd consider the band's classic, supra-riffing stables. "Living Monstrosity" christens the album with a joyous, pummeling curvature, Schuldiner's homage to the crack baby (remember slinging this terminology around as an insult in the late 80s?). There are no less than three incredible riffs buried in some rather comfortable surroundings, the first the rolling bridge leading up the chorus (1:15), the second the doomy breakdown before 2:00 that leads into the swerving, flanged dual melody, and the final being the groove behind the lead directly in the song's center. From there, the album gets even better with the doomed lead-in to "Altering the Future", also invested with some excellent death/thrash rhythms; and "Defensive Personalities", which ups the riffing ante even further with a concrete fervor, rubble strewn breakdowns and a predictable yet intimidating chorus sequence. Beyond its legendary intro melody, "Within the Mind" plods along at a more subdued speed, with some giant groove hooks reminiscent of "Pull the Plug", though it's not a favorite.

In the tradition of having the title track serve as its lengthiest, "Spiritual Healing" manages to one up even "Leprosy", with nearly eight minutes of content, opening with another fancy piece of tapping (Chuck should be credited with some of the best such sequences in all of extreme metal, to this day). The ensuing barrage is overall pretty solid, but I won't lie, there might be a minute or two of fat here that could be clipped in lieu of the better rhythms. "Low Life" transforms from a clinical groove to a number of variations, including a giant doom step around 1:20 that could just have well been a Candlemass riff (it probably was). I love "Genetic Reconstruction", the way its brick opening rhythm carries forward to the creepy bridge as Chuck's foul poetry fires off against the practices of cellular surgery, cloning and such. Lastly, there comes "Killing Spree", with another of the signature opening sequences that cedes to a pair of excellent mute streams and another of the legendary, propulsive breakdowns.

Spiritual Healing is just not Leprosy for me, nor even Scream Bloody Gore. It's not a pinnacle performance for its time, nor does it stride ahead of the previously established parameters aside from the lyrical content. Ironically enough, once Chuck took such broader steps with Human, I found myself losing some interest. Spiritual Healing might just be the 'safest' album in all of the Death catalog, but it's pretty damn good regardless. The riffs are still impressive and catchy, and the focus remains on accessible rock song structures as opposed to the manifold chaos of what Morbid Angel and Atheist were creating. You have to admire the guy for not caving in to such outside pressures. Schuldiner and most of his troops had no dearth of proficiency on their chosen vessels, but the songs always remained central (even those I didn't enjoy); simplistic enough that they wouldn't be entering the Guinness Book of World Records, but thoughtful and more than capable of sinking hooks into the listener. A few slackers here ("Within the Mind", title track) but it's honestly the last nipple-perking Death record before the cosmonaut conditioning.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (with sorrow comes reassurance)

http://www.myspace.com/deathofficial

Death - Leprosy (1988)

Where Scream Bloody Gore provided us with a glimpse of corpse strewn genius, it was Chuck Schuldiner's sophomore monstrosity Leprosy that would hammer in the final coffin nails: death metal had truly arrived, and with it an almost entire musical landscape would either book passage on the funeral barge or sink into the Lethe. Sure, thrash had of brilliance yet to offer, and to an extent, many considered Leprosy itself to fall under that category in its day. But as time has proven, it is by far one of the most expressive, beatific statements of brutality and evil that I've ever experienced, and I enjoy it with the same solidarity today as I did over 20 years ago. In fact, I hold it upon the same lofty plateau of carnage as I place a Consuming Impulse, Realm of Chaos, Left Hand Path, or Altars of Madness: a mastery of the genre's fundamentals, with unanimously catchy songs to boot.

Yes, I said catchy. Many might forget that the inauguration of death metal was not simply a thing of blunt, indifferent brutality or charnel atmospheres, but actual song craft. Such a large ratio of the genre's rabid followers today came into the fold in the 90s or beyond that I fear many might have taken (or still take) an album like Leprosy for granted. For example, you won't hear excess storms of double bass, blasting or technical drumming here where they're not viable. This was well before the market had been cornered by Cryptopsy or Suffocation. Bill Andrews' beats offer nothing more than a concrete foundation for the wondrous, insanely well written riffs and the thick as thieves bass lines, rolling on his bass drums where applicable. And know what? Nothing more is needed for this album whatsoever, because the star side of beef in this slaughter house is without any doubt the guitar riffing and the caustic vocal torments of Schuldiner.

They do not make riffs like this anymore, not often at least. Such simple but instantaneously memorable fare that manages to encapsulate the menace and threat of a worldly change for the worse. In today's climate of brickwalled, ProTools brutality, death metal has transformed into an acrobatic light show in which the most gallantly executed tricks are fawned over by brooding masses that forget them once the following weeks upstaging has transpired. But how many are writing a riff that might actually scare the fuck out of you? I mean, no offense to Deeds of Flesh or Behemoth (I enjoy some material by both), but if you were alone in a morgue during a power outage, would you feel terrified if their music started to play in the background? Fuck no you wouldn't. It's brutal, indeed, but it doesn't possess that same skin crawling atmosphere, conjured directly through its notation. You don't feel that instant repulsion as if being covered in spiders, or that wondrous, jaw-dropping disbelief you might have felt when watching human entrails being exhumed from their corporeal hosts by the zombies in an 80s Romero flick.

I feel that sensation every time I listen through Leprosy, for nearly the entirety of its 39 minutes. Even at its most goofy and uplifting ("Forgotten Past"), I'd need to hold your hand in the theater when the lights go out. The slow, sure chords of the title track de-Christen the album, dire melodies cycling across Chuck's bass lines before that ineffably damning death howl erupts around :40. Jesus fuck, I feel like I'm staring at my own corpse while cold, dead spectral hands are forcing me backwards into the maw of the underworld. Yet, it's all still catchy, in particular where the guitars cut in before 2:00 and the searing velocity of the riff after that. Not many bands can stop/start you this often and hold your attention. This one could. "Born Dead" arrives with almost playful deviance, a gaggle of gremlins and fiends dancing on your hide as they stab it with poisoned barbs, fast and brutal guitars alternating into the escalation of pure chord force in the chorus, and then the clinical tapping sequence after 1:00 which is legendary.

"Forgotten Past", as hinted above, is even more playful with an almost happy-go-lucky muted punk veneer to its introductory riff. However, it soon collides into a graveyard wall, and the lower bridge/groove rhythm at 1:00 is a knockout. "Left to Die" begins with one of the creepiest riffs on the entire album, a surgical thrashing that feels like you're watching some unfortunate be pumped with formaldehyde while still drawing breath. Big, swaggering grooves cede towards another of those glorious, thick rhythms, and I dare you not to explode at the chorus, one of the most tangible and enduring statements of DEATH METAL to date. "Pull the Plug" follows, one of the most popular pieces from this sophomore, another smorgasboard of splatter and horror with at least 5 unforgettable riffs, and a chorus that has probably broken as many bones in mosh pits as anything else in all of thrash or death (excepting "Raining Blood", of course). Listen to that riff at 1:20. That is all I should have to say...

Yet Schuldiner, Andrews and Rick Rozz are not finished with us here, and they burst out the meaty, meandering causeway of "Open Casket", with another monolithic, almost doom metal breakdown bridging the verses. I particularly enjoy the wild nature of the lead in this one, shrill and cavernous and resonant across the pathological plague-scape of the album. "Primitive Ways" has a similar, escalating brightness about it that we were teased with in "Forgotten Past", but once again composed front to end with perfect, plausible guitar lines and Chuck's unforgettable, flesh stalking vocals. "Choke On It" festers with some of the same, slower breakdown segues that populate other songs here, but is marvelously concise and offers another of the album's most malevolent, genius riffs just before 1:30. All of these are seasoned in a lyrical sauce similar to the debut. Still heavy on simplistic imagery, but more consistently composed.

We are living in 'old as new' times, folks, with many younger artists turning back to the past for their inspiration. But I'll be damned if I wouldn't pay a band double for an album that made such flawless use of inspiring, simple rhythms; or one that could conjure such morbid malignancy without simply steering towards the cavernous, deep guttural terrain. The production here is perfect, raw but resonating through the listener's mind like an autopsy on the television set. You want to turn away, you want to squint but you're glued to the gore, fascinating by the fleshy flaws and organs that lie within all of us. Leprosy was one of the most repulsive yet alluring metal experiences I was honored to undertake in the 80s, alongside the over the top Slowly We Rot or Cause of Death, or the thrashing unto death transition of Pestilence. It's probably cool in some circles to rally against Chuck from beyond the grave, and my own feelings on Death are mixed once he transformed into a philosophical cosmonaut on the fourth album (half forgetting what got him there in the first place), but I am sure as a starving bear in a spring thaw that this is one of the best goddamn things I've ever heard in my middle-age nearing existence. Leprosy forever. May the limbs of all unworthy poseurs fester in putrid permanence.

Verdict: Epic Win [10/10] (flesh contorting day after day)

http://www.myspace.com/deathofficial

Death - Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

There are many arguments to be made about which album was the first 'true death metal' effort. Many would say Possessed takes this title, and certainly a case could be made, depending on where you feel thrash ended and death began. I like to take the safe route: the first pure death metal album is Scream Bloody Gore, the debut from Florida's legendary Death. The thrash elements remain, of course, since all death metal is derived from that, but this is the well from which so much of modern brutality has sprung.

Scream Bloody Gore is actually the work of only two musicians, the immortal Chuck Schuldiner performing all guitars, bass and vocals, and Chris Reifert (Autopsy, etc) behind the kit. It's a lot more primal than what you'd expect if you jumped on the Death-wagon during the years of Human, Individual Thought Patterns, or Symbolic. Despite what music theory dorks will tell you, the first three albums are the best of Death, because they were able to compose creepy, memorable music that really flaunted the...er...'virtues' of the form: evil sounding rhythms, brutal vocals, and excellent musicianship, without falling off the deep end.

Under command a new-born child
Submerged in blood, the dead they smile
Growing possessed, burning inside
A bloody feast for us tonight

"Zombie Ritual" is easily the most recognizable track from the album, with its evil intro rhythm and flawless bloodflow of gory bludgeoning riffs, but there are many moments that glisten with with the sanguine discharge of its victims. "Denial of Life" has killer bridge and chorus riffing, a thrashing that is both creepy and happy. "Regurgitated Guts" is a hostile riffing beast, and "Baptized in Blood" has some excellent, maddening leads over the driving thrust of its rhythms. "Torn to Pieces" is another maniacal murder anthem that stands out on the album. The rest of the tracks are good, and this is still an album I can listen to all in one sitting, though a few lack that something 'extra'.

As for the downside, the lyrics here really blow, loaded with crappy rhyme schemes and disturbed imagery that a middle schooler might draw in his notebook when he's pissed off at the teacher. You won't find any of the pseudo-psychological, 'mature' tripe of the band's later work here. Just blood, guts, and loathing. But you can only get so much mileage out of:

Watch you bleed to death
Gasping for last breath
Choking on your blood
I shit onto your guts

Alas, thousands of death metal bands would use this simpler brand of lyrics for decades (pick a Mortician record at random, and read the lyrics), so despite my distaste, they were still an influential aspect of the record. The mix of Scream Bloody Gore is burly and raw, I think it remains intense and unforgiving and another reason I miss the standards of the 80s. As cult and important as the record is, I honestly favor its followup Leprosy, which is loaded from front to back with insanely great riffing. But this grandfather of death metal is still superior to about 99% of the genre's output since 1987.

Highlights: Zombie Ritual, Denial of Life, Regurgitated Guts, Torn to Pieces, Evil Dead

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (time to pay the gruesome price)

http://www.emptywords.org/