DEATH — Human (review)

DEATH — Human album cover Album · 1991 · Technical Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
arcane-beautiful
Death are a band I have had a fond interest in the past few years. I do respect them immensely and have always liked their music, but they are a band that I have only really liked them at periods. I remember having this album on my Ipod for a very long time, with a very bad quality MP3 sound. The sound quality did make me have a slight negativity towards this album for the past few years. But after finally getting my hands on the CD copy of the album, I do know like this album a little bit more.

Musically, compared to their first 3 albums, a natural progression is slowly coming into form. While the previous album “Spiritual Healing” dealt with longer and more experimental compositions, the songs on this album are a lot more compact, with similar and closer time lengths. Now, this does at time prove to be a slight negative aspect on the album, making the songs sound slightly similar. I do not like the robotic sound of the instrumental sections as well and the high focus of rhythms does annoy me slightly, but I do try and look past that and see what else the album holds.

Lyrically the album shows another progression from their earlier material. Having started out as a gore guts lyrical steal, as time went on, Chuck started to become a lot more critical of the movement. So, with this and their previous 2 albums, the lyrics started to become more philosophical. Apparently they got criticized for there change in lyrical styles, but that wouldn't change Chuck's artistic and stubborn ways.

The album intro “Flattening Of Emotions” is an incredible way to start the album. Taking no prisoners, it speeds on like a tractor mowing down helpless weeds (weird metaphor, but it works well, so lets go with it).

The albums most technical song would be the longest composition “Secret Face.” Brilliant mixture of technical guitar work and some very complex rhythms throughout.

The album's lead single “Lack Of Comprehension” is a Death classic. The intro showing some obvious Cynic influences, explodes into one of the fastest and most extreme songs on the album. The music video for the song is also worth giving a watch.

The instrumental track “Cosmic Sea” is a very interesting track. The atmospheric keyboards surprised me slightly, and even reminded me of the synths used in Iron Maiden's “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son” album.

In conclusion, this wouldn't be my favourite era of Death, but I do love a lot of tracks from this album and respect it highly. Believe me, these guys will get a lot more interesting and in my opinion better. As a fourth album showing a band's sound progressing, this is a perfect example. Definitely a pinnacle of Death Metal history.

RIP Chuck Schulinder
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