Review by Ben for Death - Human (1991)

One of the finest albums in extreme metal, Human deserves every bit of praise it receives.

“All words and music by Chuck Schuldiner.” That line can be found in the album sleeve of Death’s fourth album entitled Human. After years of trying to pull together a stable Death line-up, Chuck finally figured it would be far easier to be the only full time member of Death, and hire session musicians to help produce his vision. It’s not at all surprising given the terrible run he’d had since the band formed in 1983 under the name Mantas. Things had finally seemed to settle down around the time Spiritual Healing was recorded at the end of 1989. Bill Andrews (drums) and Terry Butler (bass) had remained with Chuck for a couple of years and with second guitarist Rick Rozz finally out of the band due to constant conflicts and replaced by the talented James Murphy, surely this Death incarnation could stick around for a while. The second half of 1990 put an end to that hope as Murphy departed the band for reasons I’m unaware of. Things got far worse when Chuck decided to pull the plug (sorry, couldn’t help myself) on a European tour as he felt it was not organised adequately. In a fairly traitorous move, Andrews and Butler recruited roadies Walter Trachsler (guitar) and Louie Carrisalez (vocals) and went on tour as Death without Chuck. As you’d expect, Chuck took legal action and Andrews and Butler were fired from the band, leaving Death in danger of collapsing altogether.

So it was, with the sheer determination that characterised the man through his entire life, Chuck went about writing material for a new Death album on his own, then recruited three of the finest musicians he could find to help him record it. While the Floridian technical death metal band Cynic had only recorded demos at this stage, they’d already made a name for themselves as excellent musicians, so Chuck hired guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert. For bass he selected none other than the godlike Steve DiGiorgio from Sadus and the four of them entered Morrisound Studios with scene legend Scott Burns in April 1991. As amazing as that line-up is on paper, it would all have come to nought if Chuck hadn’t written great material for them to perform. He did far more than that as Human is quite simply one of the very finest death metal albums you could ever have the joy of experiencing. It only has a running time of 33 minutes, but not a second is wasted with technically advanced, crushingly heavy death metal from start to finish. Spiritual Healing had already progressed Death’s musicianship and themes to intellectual heights unprecedented within the genre to that point and Human would take it a very large step further. Not only did the three session musicians bring with them a wealth of talent, but Chuck himself had improved dramatically in a short space of time.

One of the main criticisms that can be directed at Death’s first three albums is that the drumming is monotonous and not quite up to the standard of the remaining performances. Sean Reinert on the other hand is nothing short of sensational, combining relentless double bass kicking with jazz fusion inspired technicality. When combined with the endless stream of tasty riffs and both guitarists’ jaw dropping yet highly memorable leads, this is a death metal fans’ wet dream. Chuck’s vocals were still getting better with every album and his lyrics more and more thought provoking. This time around he discusses what life might be like for someone without vision or who was born as a Siamese twin, yet he does so with a high level of empathy rather than in a condescending way. Unfortunately DiGiorgio’s bass is pretty well hidden beneath the guitars for the majority of the album. When his performance breaks through it’s nothing short of the excellence we’ve come to expect, but considering how prevalent he would be on Individual Thought Patterns, it’s fair to say that he gets a bit short-changed on Human. It’s tough to pick highlights when the whole album is this great, but my personal favourites would be Flattening of Emotion, Lack of Comprehension and Cosmic Sea. The latter is right up there with Cynic’s Textures as the greatest instrumental performed by a death metal album. Human is one of metal’s finest pieces of work and utterly deserving of five stars.