Death are a death metal band from Florida. The bands lead vocalist, song writer and guitarist Chuck Schuldiner has been named the "Father of Death Metal" in the past and he truly deserves it. Death started off their career with the highly influential album
Scream Bloody Gore which is far more straight forward than recent releases. Deaths 2nd album
Leprosy is often forgotten among casual fans of the band, It's more technical and keeps to a slower pace than its predecessor while still keeping the signature Death sound.
I first heard Death about 4 years ago, while I was fond of the sheer technicality and speed I didn't like the vocals at all, they seemed too high and actually they made me cringe at first. In the end I decided to go ahead and purchase this album as I was feeling like a change. At first I was disappointed. The production was very poor compared to the bands I was listening to at the time and while very technical which I love..It didn't hold my attention. A few years past and I decided to give it another go, and boy did I make the right decision.
As a guitarist I am inclined to focus on listening to the guitars, no not really but I tend to notice them the most, if a nice riff is played it will catch my attention and that happened a lot with this album. Chuck is a fantastic guitarist with a lightning fast right hand, a good example of this is the main riff to
Primitive Ways. Chucks solos are what sets him apart from other guitarists I listen to, he uses the harmonic minor and melodic minor scales but makes them his own with lightning fast playing and drawn out bends. The 2nd guitars Rick Rozz is overshadowed by Chuck but Rick does have some good solos, a good example of this is at 2:33 in the song
Pull The Plug.
Vocally Chuck is unique, he has a high yet still harsh voice. As I mentioned before I wasn't keen on it at first but it soon grew on me thanks to hard listening and multiple slaps in the face. At 0.35 of the title track Chuck does an epic scream which always puts a smile on my face.
The bass guitar, while audible is usually following the guitar and never really shines. At 1:11 of the song
Born Dead the guitars go into a tapping harmonization leaving the bass to deal with the rhythm which sounds excellent.
Bill Andrews while out shun by other drummers in Death puts up a great performance on the drums, ranging from normal 4/4 beats to extreme tempo mayhem it's a great listen throughout. There is some good double bass work but he doesn't seem to use it not nearly as much as other drummers of Death. On the production side of the things the drums sound great, the snare drum is a very loud at times which might put people off. The biggest stand out drum wise for me was at 1:17 of the song
Pull The Plug with great use of the double bass pedal.
This is a fantastic death metal record from the founders themselves. If you are a fan of technical metal or just plain old death metal this is a great album to own, while keeping the signature sound of Death the album moves forward and to a higher level than
Scream Bloody Gore. Also if you do check this out and like what you hear you should buy all of Deaths albums as they are all brilliant.
Recommended Tracks:
Leprosy
Pull The Plug
Born Dead
Left To Die
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