Death
Individual Thought Patterns

June 22, 1993 - June 22, 2018

Exactly twenty-five years have passed since the release of the fifth "stormy" album by the band of the brilliant Chuck Schuldiner. I used the term "stormy" because we are truly faced with something astonishing; complex musical plots, with surprisingly effective melodic openings. One of the greatest examples of pure, devastating, uncompromising Death Metal. Released on the same day as another cornerstone of the genre, namely Covenant by Morbid Angel.

Individual Thought Patterns is the only Death album I own in the original vinyl version, with that sound that is even richer, rawer, more reliable, and that overwhelms and crushes you.

Now, some might wrinkle their noses, and not only that, arguing that there are already three reviews of the album in question. But have you read them? Besides, one was removed by the high hierarchical ranks of Debaser because it was "copied" from another music site. And the other two don't seem particularly inspired to me. Having written this obligatory preamble, I begin my page by quoting myself to give immediate consistency to my ramblings on this very hot evening.

"It is Chuck Schuldiner's fifth album, accompanied by a stellar lineup, the best the Florida group has ever had: Gene Hoglan on drums (inhuman), Steve DiGiorgio on bass (I can't find suitable terms) and Andy LaRocque on guitar (Mr. Heavy Metal riff). And it is precisely the presence of the latter that makes the fierce and compact sound much more "heavy," although it does not lack the typical brutal accelerations that have accompanied Death from the start."

Chuck has always been the sole undisputed father-master of the band he created; always demanding the best from his collaborators and changing the lineup with each album released. This time, he manages to assemble a powerful, cohesive formation, technically unparalleled by any other band of the period. No offense to Carcass, Entombed, Morbid Angel, Dismember, Sepultura, but in my opinion, the title of best Death Metal album of 1993 should be awarded, by a wide margin, to Death.

Ten tracks for forty minutes and a few seconds; a fearsome rhythm section with Gene's gigantic human octopus managing to dictate vertiginous rhythms without ever yielding, thanks to stormy drumming. Supported by Steve's bass, which this time, unlike the previous Human two years earlier, is audible and in the foreground throughout the work. The prodigious auditory maze is completed by the binary work of Chuck and Andy's guitars; the violent brutality of Chuck's six-string sound and Andy's classic Heavy Metal riff shoes balance each other, clash, unite. A new way of understanding extreme music is born, with digressions that even touch on Progressive.

A constant vertiginous musical hurricane, always under the band's control; not a single note is out of place. Everything is aimed at giving the best, to create a stunning and obsessive sound wall. As happens in the sublime opening of the first track of the collection "Overactive Imagination": time changes follow one another between continuous accelerations and decelerations. Chuck's murderous and growling voice closes the circle of perfection.

Because this is a perfect, disarming, annihilating album.

And with each new listen, emotion takes hold of the present DeMa: too soon we had to give up the boundless creativity of the Florida boy... THE PHILOSOPHER...

Ad Maiora.