Death was one of the first death metal bands that I tried to listen to when wanting to expand my musical tastes. At first I couldn't stomach the vocals, let alone the music. "Scream Bloody Gore" was the first Death album I bought. Aside from the song "Zombie Ritual", I really didn't care for the rest of the album. But there was always something about the band that kept my interest in them. I ended up getting both "Leprosy" and "Spiritual Healing". What I noticed with each release was improvement both in song writing and production.

It wasn't until the album "Human" that I found a heightened interest and respect for this band. To me, "Human" is Death's first technical death metal album; one which would lead to other masterpieces in the same style like "Individual Thought Patterns", "Symbolic" and "Sound of Perseverance".

To name the album "Human" is ironic because the musicianship on this recording is uncanny! I feel the most notable and improved change in Death's music is the technical drumming and addition of Sean Reinert. His playing is powerful, complex and brings a whole new dimension to the band's music. When I listen to the album, I envision a mad scientist mixing chemicals in his lab to formulate a potion of unimaginable power and unleashed fury. The drum technique is machine like, almost robotic and un-human. It's fast yet precise. Simply phenomenal!

And let us not forget the guitar genius himself, the late Chuck Schuldiner. His guitar arrangements and playing on this release is light years ahead of anything he did on the previous three releases. His compositional skills include strange, dissonant harmonized guitar lines which change moods and textures over the course the entire album. He even used slower rhythms, complex dynamic tempo changes, insidious melodies with lyrical content that was more enlightened but less dark and cynical in subject matter. There's a guitar crunch in his sound with enough clarity to make out the notes he is playing. Schuldiner's ability to mix melody and harmonies with the technical aspect of playing and death metal vocals really opened the door to other bands of this new format of metal.

Every track on this album is killer! Most of the songs average around four minutes in length. Alot of stuff happens within that time frame. The production, recording and mix is excellent!

I personally like "Symbolic" the best with "Human" as a close second, followed by "Individual Thought Patterns" and "The Sound of Perseverance".

One can only imagine what other works of art Chuck Schuldiner, (a true pioneer and father of technical death metal), could have given us before his untimely death. R.I.P.