Band: Death
Title: The Sound Of Perseverance
Label: Relapse Records
Distribution: Rough Trade Benelux.
Release date: February 15th 2011
Review: DCD (re-issue)

It is rather evident that I will not introduce Death. Without this band, Death Metal wouldn’t have existed - all right, I admit: I’m exaggerating just a little - but even the name ‘death metal’ sort of is courtesy of Charles ‘Evil Chuck’ Schuldiner. When Death were still called Mantas, they did release the demo tape (tape, cassette, yeah indeed) Death (by) Metal – we’re talking about the first half of the eighties! I was just a boy and carefully putting my first footsteps in a world of unknown yet somewhat graveyardian spheres - which eventually seemed to turn out rather addictive, since I’m still obedient to this kind of heavy sounds.

Anyway, this band is legendary; maybe it might be thé ultimate band, thé protagonist of all Death Metal (and lots more than this) in history.
Anyway again, Mantas became Death in 1985, and the band was highly influential, popular and professional in all aspects. I am possessed / obsessed by the earliest efforts (all demos released as Mantas and Death, as well as the gargantuan albums that came out (initially, like how I had them back then, on vinyl only; CD’s didn’t exist yet!).

Death’s Death Metal-style changed a lot throughout the years, but still it remained the same band. They evolved from a somewhat gorified sound (from Mantas to Scream Bloody Gore, Death’s official 1987-debut) over majestic old school USDM (Leprosy is my number-one Death Metal release from 1988, that’s a certainty). Spiritual Healing (1990) brought in some more experimental touches, yet as from Death’s 1991-album Human, their most progressive efforts were to come for sure.
Around that time, Chuck Schuldiner wanted to put Death to rest to continue with his new band Control Denied. Control Denied was more experimental and progressive, and it’s this kind of music Chuck wanted to continue with; yet without losing his Death Metal roots, for sure. However, Chuck did agree with major label to do one more Death-album, and this is why some tracks on this album, The Sound Of Perseverance, were originally written for Control Denied’s debut album.

The Sound Of Perseverance was recorded at the legendary Morrisound Studio, the sublime place (Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under, Nocturnus, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Terrorizer and more of this unhealthy stuff back then) where they did record all material as from Leprosy on, with also-legendary Jim Morris (engineering, production, mix and mastering) (and who, by the way, also continued working with Control Denied).
Nuclear Blast re-released the material unchanged in 2001, and at the end of 2005 with a bonus-DVD. And now there’s another re-release, this time through Relapse. Two notes to make: 1) Relapse Records recently re-released Control Denied’s sole full length, The Fragile Art Of Existence (review posted on December 31st 2010), and 2) this re-release might be interesting as if it were for the bonus disc only.

The original album is a true Death-classic with Chuck experimenting more vocally, even though it gets miles away from Scream Bloody Gore or Leprosy (or any period before this one). It was ‘Death’, yet even more progressive than it was the case with Human. Besides, personally I do consider it more a Thrash-album (Progressive Thrash, all right) than a Death Metal album. You have the unique progressive riffs and rhythms at the one hand, yet it gets combined with thrashy stuff that reminds me enormously to bands like Kreator, Tormentor, Metallica, Pestilence and Destruction as well.
The bonus disc consists of demo-material from the period between Symbolic and The Sound Of Perseverance / Control Denied. All of these songs appear on the album too, but it might be nice to hear a rougher version of these.

Worth mentioning as well: the Judas Priest-cover of Painkiller. I consider it one of the best Judas Priest-songs ever (from the same-called album), but I do really like Death’s interpretation of it.
Yet again: a re-re-re-release … I think…

---/100 (as re-release)
84/100 (originally)

Ivan Tibos.