Death were an easy sell once I got beyond the whole “is screaming-all-the-time music worth my time?” question out of the way. They’ve got such well-manicured chops they quickly move beyond yell-and-pound status anyway. I’d even venture to say albums like The Sound of Perseverance got a little proggy.
That’s what happens when boundaries are constantly being broken and the only way to go is up-up-up. Cynic reached that point after only a few albums, delving into the jazzier side of prog metal and occasionally sounding like geniuses. Death started out as grimy as bum covered in sewer sludge, and as the years went on they got more and more proficient and their songs began to resemble endless spiral stairways more than mosh-pit soundtracks. Of all the Florida death metal acts, Death are part of my holy triad, along with Morbid Angel and Bloodlet (I realize not putting Cannibal Corpse on there is ridiculous, but this is just a personal-favorite triad, not like a final-statement debate-starter).
Back to The Sound of Perseverance: I think it’s a great death-metal yarn, but Individual Thought Patterns is better (download it above; then buy it). In the case of this band, however, even the lower-grade material is worth revisiting because Chuck Schuldiner and company had sharpened their swords to insane extremes and weren’t afraid to wield them and chop some goddamn heads.
Double-bass, molten-metal twin-guitar gymnastics, bass that sorta just putters along behind the mix (Steve DiGiorgio was long gone by this time, though he played on the demos for Sound of Perseverance) and those crazed, scream-until-your-grown-man-hair-falls-out shrieks — you know what to expect when you enter the Death dungeon, the question is, can you handle serving after serving of this shit over four sides of transparent-red-splatter vinyl?
The kids of today should have no problem latching onto this brand of robotic future-metal, what with bands like Genghis Tron, Pig Destroyer, Horse: The Band and Cephalic Carnage upping the ante for insane grindcore and prog having enjoyed a resurgence. Death should fit right into that pocket of interest for a lot of folks who probably have no idea who they are.
Check out the pics of the vinyl, download Individual Thought Patterns and … have a nice death day!
