The Live Release Thread - The Horde Edition

Death - "Live in L.A. (Death & Raw)" (2001)

This archival live album was released by Death's label Nuclear Blast in order to raise money to assist Chuck Schuldiner's family in supporting Chuck through his futile quest to fight off the brainstem tumor that eventually killed him & I'd hazard to guess that it probably wouldn't have seen the light of day if Chuck had anything to do with it as the production is very rough & bootleg-ish & the performances aren't amazing at times either. But considering that I never got the chance to see Death play live, I'll take this record as it's about as close as I'm going to get really. These recordings were taken from the 1998 tour for Death's final record "The Sound Of Perseverance" which came just after Chuck's peak period in my opinion. For that reason, Atheist & Pestilence fans would likely have been rejoicing at a setlist that's heavily weighted towards the most progressive material in Death's back catalogue with only a couple of tracks included from the first few albums for those still proudly donning their decaying Possessed "Seven Churches" t-shirts. It's hard to be too critical of a setlist that looks like one though. It's absolutely chock full of classics but it's hard not to feel that many of them have had their potency curtailed a bit by the production & performance issues with only the two-track run of "Together As One" & "Empty Words" managing to truly maintain their elite status. The fact that Chuck had elected to maintain the new higher-pitched death growl he'd adopted for the "The Sound of Perseverance" across the entire tracklisting hasn't helped matters as it's certainly not as effective as his classic style. That's not to say that there's anything even resembling a weak track amongst this lot though & I'd suggest that any Death fan worth his salt should have a copy of this album &/or the accompanying video.

4/5

Note: Ben's review is excellent & says everything that needs to be said about "Live in L.A. (Death & Raw)" so I didn't feel the need to extend myself to a full review.