Review by Daniel for Death - Scream Bloody Gore (1987)
No matter what sort of death metal fan you talk to it’s rare to find one that doesn’t love at least one of the various ever-changing incarnations of Death. Everyone has their preferences which generally correspond closely with age, taste & exposure. That’s what makes Death such a classic death metal band. Perhaps the most important of all. My first encounter with Death was as a 13 year old. I was newly into the more underground end of thrash metal & had started religiously tuning in to some late-night metal radio programs. Death’s second album “Leprosy” had just been released & had taken the underground metal scene by storm so it didn’t take long for me to jump onboard with this new death metal sound. It was more extreme than anything I’d ever heard before & it intrigued me. It felt like I was a part of some exclusive club that my parents & the vast majority of my friends couldn’t understand. It wasn’t long until I became a part of the underground tape trading scene & I quickly picked up a dubbed copy of “Scream Bloody Gore”.
As a death metal album “Scream Bloody Gore” may not compare favourably when sitting alongside some of the classics of the genre but there are few albums that have had a greater influence. What makes “Scream Bloody Gore” unique is that Death managed to present a new, refined & fully realized genre on their first attempt; taking the earlier Possessed model & shaving off the edges that would still have people questioning the death metal credentials of an album like "Seven Churches". If you listen to "Scream Bloody Gore" today it is undeniably death metal even by today’s standards. Most other albums that were influential in the creation of new genres could only provide elements that were then combined with others to create the finished product. It was an amazing achievement really & that shouldn’t be underestimated.
The overall consistency of “Scream Bloody Gore” is very good for a debut album too. In fact I think that the primitive “Torn To Pieces” is probably the only track that I think is a little weaker. The rest of the songs are of a generally high quality with “Baptized In Blood”, “Infernal Death” & “Zombie Ritual” (possibly the first death metal song I ever learned to play on guitar) being my personal favourites. The raw production really suits the music. In fact I think it adds to the dark atmosphere. There are plenty of classic palm-muted tremolo-picked death metal riffs on offer but early Death unquestionably still included a hefty dose of the more extreme thrash metal that was around at the time. You can easily hear the influence of bands like Slayer & Possessed here but that element faded as Chuck’s death metal style became more defined over the next couple of albums. Chuck’s guitar solos may have lacked sophistication at this stage but they made up for it in pure energy with blazing high-speed fretboard workouts the order of the day here. The lack of a full-time bass player led to Chuck assuming the bass guitar duties as well; a role that he performs very effectively in fact. The bass is easily heard throughout & it grumbles along nicely.
Much was made of Chuck’s vocal approach. It was amongst the first true death metal performances on a major metal release. Personally I’ve always felt that guys like Jeff Becerra (Possessed) & Mille Petrozza (Kreator) were heavily influential in the push for more extreme vocal sounds. In fact you could probably throw in Quorthon (Bathory) too but there was something undeniably different about the new growlier style that Chuck Schuldiner was pushing & when you combined the deathly lyrical content it all just seemed so bad ass to a young teenager like myself. By late 1989 I’d discovered the likes of Carcass & Morbid Angel & the flood gates were well & truly opened wide.
“Scream Bloody Gore” is far from the pinnacle of death metal but it’s very hard to deny that it has a lot of endearing qualities. Chuck always understood how to walk the fine line between brutality & memorability & there’s a distinct catchiness to most of this material. “Leprosy” improved on this idea & further defined the genre a year later but the youthful exuberance & infectious energy of the debut deserves all of the respect it has garnered in the underground metal scene over the years.