DEATH- LEPROSY

Death. Not the Detroit proto-punk band that recently had all their material from the mid-70's reissued but the Florida band from the late 80's that really, if they didn't invent it, gave the genre of death-metal it's name. The argument over who was the first real death-metal band rages on and always will: Possessed, Death Strike, Sadus, Morbid Saint... but with all of those bands there was still a clear allegiance to the tendencies of thrash. Obviously Death couldn't have made the music they did without those bands or all of thrash metal's innovations but there was something mysterious on those first two Death LP's that just sounded so much heavier than everyone else making metal in the late 80's.

This, their second LP, is my favourite metal album of all time. It's not hailed as a masterpiece in most circles and it's usually near the bottom on most people's Death depth-chart but it's their last LP before the more progressive tendencies (which I also love) started to show up. This is raw, heavy, evil and masterfully composed death-metal. The riffs are crushing, the drum sound is amazingly heavy while still sounding raw in the way early death-metal should and this is the only Death album with second guitarist Rick Rozz. For those who know, Rozz was a notoriously lazy guitarist who was sacked from the band for his refusal to help write more progressive material but his playing style works in perfect harmony with main man Chuck Schuldiner on these songs. Chuck is an amazing soloist who has a flair for finding the melody within the dissonance of his compositions, turning his solos into their own internal compositions. Rozz is a thug with a floyd-rose who's solos consist of an endless barrage of dive-bombs, ascending legato-runs with no real purpose and they all end with a big dive or a big pull. Having these two styles on the record is what makes it for me. It really is the perfect mix of first-wave death-metal and what would become progressive death-metal.

If you play guitar, like, or are even curious about death metal then you owe it to yourself to check out this band.


HERE