Death
Scream Bloody Gore

THE REVIEW

If an alien came to Earth and asked me what Death Metal is, if I didn't faint, I would walk shocked to my room and put on this record, telling them: "Here. THIS is Death Metal".
Exactly. Seminal debut of the equally seminal Death, major founders of Death Metal along with all the other usual bands you'll look up on the Internet because I'm tired of repeating them, and then you might also take me for an arteriosclerotic and repetitive person. This album is a sort of testament of how Death HAD to sound at the time: exactly as our tormented ears can perceive from this album with its terrible cover!

Rotten, raw, and brutal sounds, all obviously accompanied by a good dose of B-series Gore/Horror lyrics, which fortunately are overshadowed by Chuck's guitar (here also playing the bass! Give it a try yourself, for fuck's sake!), downtuned as usual, sounding really powerful and heavy while Chris Reifert's drumming (later in the fundamental Autopsy, which I also reviewed UAZZZ) delivers an excellent performance, hindered by the poor production that unfortunately makes the snare sound too sharp and intrusive, a flaw that nonetheless did not undermine the skill of the powerful and promising drummer, another of the many fundamental elements that contributed to the correct development of Death. (Given the essential dose of tupatupatupa contained here, after a while you'll find yourself cursing the producer, just as it happened to me).

The vocals deserve more than a mention (eeeh? vocals?), obviously in the groundbreaking Growl, a brand new characteristic that scandalized the purist Thrasher of the time who expected a voice, aggressive yes, but clean, like Tom Araya's to be clear. The Slayer must have smiled at the release of this album: the tupatupa refers to them, the solos refer to them, the riffs refer to them: don't expect an album in the style of "Symbolic" or "The Sound Of Perseverance", here there is only violence and history of Death: the album is VERY bad. Pieces inherently tied to the fiercest Thrash tradition (King and Hanneman are always around the corner) seasoned with gut-wrenching, vomited guts, and baptisms in blood (here the references are to Venom) which would soon become the standard of Death Metal band lyrics (Cannibal Corpse doesn't say anything to you?) make Death from "Scream Bloody Gore" absolutely unrecognizable, hundreds of kilometers away from epoch-making "Works of Art" like "Human", "Individual Thought Patterns" and especially "The Fragile Art Of Existence": all elements that however well represent the idea of the genius of the great Chuck, capable of transitioning from the purest Death Metal (this and the subsequent “Leprosy”) to intelligent Death ("Spiritual Healing"/"Human"/"Individual Thought Patterns"/"Symbolic"/"The Sound Of Perseverance"), to contaminated Classic (“The Fragile Art Of Existence”) and who knows how many more things, if it hadn't been for the fucking greed of the American healthcare system.

The album opens great with the purest Death of "Infernal Death", which will go down in history as one of the most violent opening songs for an album. Pure Death Metal! Moving through the equally exceptional "Zombie Ritual", "Regurgitated Guts", "Baptized In Blood" you can notice Chuck's technical lack which still remains at good levels, while the innovativeness of the riffing leaves you speechless. A perfect work, maybe too raw, but excellent: an absolute Masterpiece of Death Metal, from which Chuck's band got its name. Maybe, if you want a piece of advice to "digest" the early Death better, don't approach their magnificent multidimensional world with this album (as I did) because given the absolute violence of the Songs and the soft delicacy of your virgin ears you might be tempted to drop everything labeling it with a generic "mess" or you might take longer to get through it: instead, start with more "light" things such as "Symbolic" and "The Sound Of Perseverance", thus retracing the greatest Death Metal growth ever seen.

What else to say? Oh yes, almost forgot: the album is also available in a pornographic version, with moans instead of growls: just go to any sex shop and ask for "Screma Bloody Whore"! Uahahahahaaa!