DEATH — Symbolic (review)

Album · 1995 · Technical Death Metal

4/5 · 2017-06-03
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Death’s “Symbolic” album first caught my attention when it appeared in the Top 5 Metal Albums of MMA, showing up smartly in the column of album artwork that usually includes “Master of Puppets”, “Rust in Peace”, “Rainbow Rising”, and “Reign in Blood”. The fifth album recently has been “Keeper of the Keys Pt. 2” but “Symbolic” has been there in the past, and as I have recently taken an interest in death metal, I decided this must be one of the first albums to acquire.

Death is considered one of the most important bands in the development of the genre. I have watched two YouTube channel videos where Death’s debut “Scream Bloody Gore” and Possessed’s “Seven Churches” have been discussed as first death metal albums. Over its career, Death released only seven albums before founding member Chuck Schuldiner passed away, but I’ve heard it said that there is not a bad album among them. So I had very high expectations when I received this.

The album was not to my expectations, however. First, the guitar tone was higher than I had anticipated. Also, the playing style was not technical and fast like Gorguts but more like technical thrash metal. By technical here I don’t mean highly complex and difficult riffs but rather thrash metal that covers several different riffs in a song, changing riffs and tempo abruptly, and includes slow, heavy riffs as well as speedy chugging. For the first two or three listens, I was frequently reminded of Sacrifice or even Slayer, as if those bands had created music with an added dimension. This is of course not to say that I don’t like the music. The guitar sound, the riffs, and the playing, along with many of the lead breaks, all sound really awesome to my ears. It’s just that I had been listening to Opeth, Gorguts, Kataklysm, Bolt Thrower, and Cryptopsy leading up to hearing this album.

Another surprise was Chuck’s voice. Once again, I had been expecting the death growl, that low and guttural roaring and bellowing. Chuck, however, has more of that thrash metal, back-of-the-throat, shouting/singing style. That too sounds great though. So again, no disappointment there either.

One other thing that I had been expecting was a progressive element. A fellow metal fan had told me that when he heard dream Theater’s “Images and Words” for the first time, he had just recently also heard an album by Death, and he was of the opinion that Death’s album was really progressive, so to him Dream Theater sounded more like a glam metal band with some flourishes. That set me up to expect some pretty impressive progressive metal but once more what I heard was not what I had anticipated. Again, I felt this was more like technical thrash metal than progressive metal. Adding more riffs to a song or changing tempo frequently is not uncommon in thrash. It’s one thing I loved about Slayer’s song “Hell Awaits”, songs from Sacrifice’s “Soldiers of Misfortune” or some older Metallica albums like “Master of Puppets” and even “Ride the Lightning”. Megadeth also went for that more technical thrash style. I wouldn’t exactly call it progressive metal though it does exhibit a higher level of creativity than just thrashing through track after track.

Now, despite the fact that much of the album did not meet my expectations, I do really like the album and I am considering picking up two more Death albums in the coming months. It’s not inconceivable that I would end up with the whole collection at some point. The only point for me where this album is not five stars is that I cannot pick out any favourite tracks. Of course each song is distinct from the others and some songs have become familiar enough to me now that I get a little happy rush when they start playing. But overall, there aren’t any really stand out tracks for me. The every song is worthy of 4 or 4.5 stars, in my opinion. I don’t hear any solid 5-star track or any of those totally killer tracks that must be in the higher almost unattainable plane of the 6-star song.

Death’s “Symbolic” is a very solid, consistent, and excellent album. For my preference, it’s not a Top Ten masterpiece, but it’s certainly an album worthy of any metal collection.