HUMAN

Death was one of, if not the, most important band in the conception and development of progressive death metal. Human was the real turing point for the group, as mastermind Chuck Schuldiner brought about a completely new lineup and really improved his composing. By all means, this is a a well-crafted and important release, but it is difficult to enjoy. While all of the musicians are top-notch, the music in generally is brutal and relentless, the vocals are grating, and the production is quite terrible. The only melodies are ones produced by a guitar riff, since the vocals are entirely growled, and even those are hardly memorable. There is hardly any variety in the sound (only a few clean sections here, most of it ocurring on the same song, the instrumental "Cosmic Sea"), and it feels like the clean parts are not given a fair amount of development because they aren't given a fair amount of time, but hey that's death metal for you. And talk about "Flattening of Emotions!" They really do here. The music seems to lack some emotional depth as a result of such a flattening; at the same time, the band really does stay true to its name. This is quite death-like in sound and scope.

But again, the complexity and performance values of this music were practically underheard of at the time and leagues beyond the standards of the genre. Big kudos to Chuck & co. for the effort, but frankly with all of the amazing new material that is being released today, as music is constantly progressing and elaborating on older ideas, it seems like the only reason to listen to this is to pay homage to its importance.

While over the next two albums Death's sound didn't really evolve, the writing continued to improve and so did the production. I would look to one of the following records for a more rewarding listen.