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Rating: Let's make it clear right away: this CD is a masterpiece. Don't bother with the lack of technique, the uncertain sounds, the excessive brutality, the lack of originality in the solos, blablabla.
These are the Death of the early, devastating period, the one of "Scream Bloody Gore" just to be clear, so don't expect melody or superhuman technique or thought-out tempos nor jazz players around, because you would be entirely wrong. THESE are the first Death, the Death of 1988, a year after the historic "Scream Bloody Gore".
This atomic weapon (luckily no one has discovered its potential use for war purposes, otherwise goodbye planet Earth) contains 8 shards of pleasantly raw thrash-death metal, edited during the period when Death was a band more eager to play than technical, deeply influenced by bands like Venom and Slayer which were extremely popular among metalheads at the time.
Sometimes incomprehensible speed, typically Slayeresque solos (from time to time you might wonder if you're listening to "Reign In Blood" or Death), dark and furious growl, terrible recording due to the limited budget, technique that begins to appear here and there in flashes and much more mature lyrics than the predecessor make this CD a masterpiece of death metal.
But let's move onto the analysis of the group's situation. The lineup is upset compared to "Scream...", in fact, we still find Charles "Chuck" Schuldiner (R.I.P) on guitar and vocals, while on the second guitar we find the chubby Rick Rozz (a pseudonym behind which hides the rolling countryside entity, as suggested by the false last name, that answers to the name Frederick DeLillo), Terry Butler on bass and Bill Andrews on drums.
These four elements have given life to one of the most wicked CDs in metal, unfortunately underrated, but which I personally don't hesitate to define as the masterpiece of the FIRST Death.
We are light-years away from gems like "Human" or "Individual Thought Patterns": here we are, in fact, faced with a very angry Chuck, who revisits the philosophy with which he composed the previous one: "This is what I want to play, and I play it. If you jerks want to buy it, buy it, if not, well, then go to hell, I really don't care about you at all".
The recording is terrible, the snare drum is really intrusive and often annoying, also due to its frequency: in fact, this CD has an industrial amount of tupatupatupatupa, which Death had inherited from Slayer. Anyway, we are faced with a much more mature work than the predecessor: songs like the beautiful title-track, "Born Dead", "Pull The Plug" (the best track of the early Death in my opinion) or "Open Basket" have now become part of the collective death metal imagination. Chuck, as usual, delivers a series of destructive growls, often accompanied by screams and not very reassuring echoes.
The solos are beginning to show a certain mastery of the instrument, even though we are miles away from the virtuosity of "The Philosopher": Chuck, however, showed that he had made a remarkable quality leap compared to "Scream...", presenting the usual Slayer-type solos, overused of pick tapping and tremolo on very high notes, but more internalized and personal, and from the next "Spiritual Healing" they will be absolutely devoid of influences but very personal and highly expressive. In short, an album that, although full of flaws, is a milestone in the path taken by Death and unfortunately interrupted prematurely.
A devastating album, even too much, in short, but it marks a step in the musical evolution of Death, then almost unrecognizable. Listen to it, and you'll understand how nice it must have been to be 17 in 1988 to say to your friends: "Hey old man, 'Leprosy', the latest LP by Death, is out, it's going to bust the turntable's needle!!!!!".
P.S. Note the beautiful cover, not surprisingly created by the great Edward Repka, the same one of the never too-praised sleeve of Megadeth's "Peace Sells..." and "Rust In Peace".
P.P.S.: Please let me know your impressions of the review, so maybe I can improve next time. Thanks. Best regards to everyone.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Leprosy (06:20)
Bodies deformed way beyond belief
Cast out from their concerned society
Flesh contorting day after day
Freak of the dark world is what the people say
Their lives decay before their eyes
There is no hope of cure
Among their own kind they live
A life that's so obscure
First an arm and then a leg
Deterioration grows
Rotting while they breathe - Death comes slow
Leprosy will take control and bring you to your death
No chance of a normal life to live just like the rest
Leprosy will spread with time, Your body soon to change
Appearance becomes hideous a sight too much to take
Tuberculoid the most severe
Decay of the nerves comes fast
Sense of feeling soon to be gone
Life will never last
No hope of recovery after the nerves are eaten away
Damage is done you feel no more pain
Bones decay deterioration grows
Origin of this horrid disease nobody knows
Their lives decay before their eyes
There is no hope of cure
Among their own kind they live
A life that's so obscure
First an arm and then a leg
Deterioration grows
Rotting while they breathe - Death comes slow
Leprosy will take control and bring you to your death
No chance of a normal life to live just like the rest
Leprosy will spread with time, Your body soon to changel
Appearance becomes hideous a sight too much to take
03 Forgotten Past (04:36)
Deep in your mind there is another side
A morbid truth one cannot hide
Unimaginable gore was your past time high
To hear people scream, To watch them die
Return back to the burial site
Face your dreams upon this night
Severed limbs not far away
Spirit past you now obey
Images of the forgotten past
Your first life revealed at last
Now you'll find to your surprise
All the corpses you left behind
A place you feel you've been to before
Where life would turn right into gore
You dig deep down through the years of decay
The truth is revealed, You found your way
Return back to the burial site
Face your dreams upon this night
Severed limbs not far away
Spirit past you now obey
Images of the forgotten past
Your first life revealed at last
Now you'll find to your surprise
All the corpses you left behind
05 Pull the Plug (04:26)
Memory's all that's left behind
As I lay and wait to die
Little do they know
That I hear their choice of life
End it now, it is the only way
Too cruel, that is what they say
Release me from this lonely world
There is no hope - Why don't you
Pull the plug
Let me pass away
Pull the plug
Don't want to live this way
Once I had full control of my life
I now behold a machine decides my fate
End it now it's all to late
What has now been days, It seems like years
To stay like this is what I fear
Life ends so fast, So take your chance
And make it last
End it now, It is the only way
Too cruel, That is what they say
Release me from this lonely world
There is no hope - Why don't you
Pull the plug
Let me pass away
Pull the plug
Don't want to live this way
06 Open Casket (04:55)
Approach the image filled with fear
As the image grows so clear
Future now takes full control
The one whose past you now behold
Touch - The flesh it is so cold
Turn away - You now have been told
Never to return, Memories will last
In the future, You'll think about the past
Never to forget, What you have seen
People come to pay respect
Taking pictures of the dead
That is what life comes to be
Once they lived, Now they're deceased
Death is oh so strange
The past no one can change
What you can't predict
Is how long you'll exist
Open casket - Open casket
Life will never be the same
Death can never be explained
It's their time to go beyond
Empty feeling when they're gone
Never to return, Memories will last
In the future, You'll think about the past
Never to forget, What you have seen
What can not be real you now believe
07 Primitive Ways (04:33)
Go against the ways and experience pain
Leading a life which one might call insane
Bathe in the blood of the one you killed
Slaughter to survive, Your needs are fulfulled
Using horrid waste
Some of them will taste
Removing deadly disease
With such primitive ease
Cannibals practising the art of butchery
Emotions don't exist, Pain you can't resist
Primitive ways
Conducting ceremonies to meet the ancient ones
While having an outer body experience
Celebrate the kill of the day
Then walk among the guts of the fallen prey
Using horrid waste
Some of them will taste
Removing deadly disease
With such primitive ease
Cannibals practising the art of butchery
Emotions don't exist, Pain you can't resist
08 Choke on It (05:54)
Freedom is just a breath away
Will you live to see the day
As the heat intensifies
You start to choke, Your insides fry
Seizure now sets in
Torture will begin
Twisted bodies lie
Waiting now to die
Choke on it - As your tongue goes down
Choke on it - Death is all around
Screaming fills your frenzied mind
No way out no more time
Example made from those to see
Your freedom turned to misery
World is all around
Of what they have found
Lesson to be learn
You will not return
Choke on it - As your tongue goes down
Choke on it - Death is all around
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Other reviews
By evileye9000
"A sick and dark voice, an oppressive drum and notably downtuned and extremely fast guitars are the characteristics of this CD... a must for anyone who wants to know early Death and the early, raw death metal!"
"The chorus is amazing ('You’ll not return alive – Left To Die')."
By sfascia carrozze
When someone gargles with muriatic acid, concrete nails, and the metal spheres of stainless steel bearings and then screams in your face with all the strength and wheezing desperation they possess 'STACCALASPINA', for me they are the undisputed champion of the entire (un)known universe in terms of elegiac assorted poetics.
If those old baboons of the Royal Academy of Sciences lounged in plenary session in Stockholm had a minimal sense of art instead of awarding it to that old mouflon Roberto Dilano, they should have assigned it, even posthumously, to the indomitable Don Chuck Schuldiner.
