LEPROSY

With "Leprosy" Death make a step forward from the extremely radical death metal sound present in their first LP "Scream Bloody Gore", in every way. Except one; for me, the enjoyment of the album is the same I had with the first album.

Chuck Schuldiner had to gather a few more musicians for this album, so that Death could be an actual band and not just a one man project; we have Rick Rozz at guitars, Terry Butler at bass and Bill Andrews on drums. The musicianship is as a consequence an improvement, but still far from precise and virtuous. The production is still poor and rough, but even here slightly better than the one in "Scream Bloody Gore".

Musically, this is pure and simple death metal, with some more complex riffs and longer songs, an element that will become more and more developed by the band until, with "Human", they will become a Technical Death Metal band and use this formula constantly. But here we see only little traces of progressive song structures.The lyrical content is a little more intelligent than the one of first album, and some times they concern controversial matters, such as pulling the plug on somebody who lives in a vegetable state. But we still have pretty much those same themes we find on "Scream Bloody Gore", even though there in the second album there is a consistency concerning disease and extreme pessimism about living here in this world.

The reason why I didn't like this album is just the fact that I didn't get into the songs in here. There are some good moments, like in the title track, the longest song of the album, "Forgotten Past", or the already mentioned "Pull The Plug", but I don't care at all about the rest of the songs, which was kind of disappointing for me.

I know many people don't mind listening to this album, but I just got a little bored and I don't feel like picking it up for a long time now.But I can't deny that without this album Death maybe would have never been so great, and that it is most definitely a step forward.