Chuck Bass Song
Dulce Donten
There's something to be said for the visionary who dismantles the very movement he's created or pioneered. John Coltrane left behind hard bop to scatter sheets of sound, always knowing there was something more to explore. After joining the Communist Party, composer Cornelius Cardew rejected his prominent role in the English Avant-Garde to protect populist folk music. For a humble guitarist from Florida named Chuck Schuldiner, his metal band Death (not to be confused with the proto-punk band of the same name) was a mere instrument. Along with the Bay Area's Possessed, Death not only helped spawn an entire extreme genre around gore and technical guitar wizardry, but like horror movies sometimes do, Death also challenged our notions of life.
From the 1983 Death by Metal demo by a pre-Death band called Mantas to the hollering banshee wail of Scream Bloody Gore to the early jazz-metal fusions of Human to the glorious 1998 swansong, The Sound of Perseverance, Schuldiner lived the Leonardo da Vinci creed: "Art is never finished, only abandoned." Not one Death album was the same, but they were very much all connected; the non-linear narrative continued through Schuldiner's formation of the scream-less progressive heavy metal band Control Denied.
If you want more, I strongly recommend tracking down Decibel magazine's oral history of Death published this past year in Issue No. 77. Relapse Records is also in the midst of an extensive reissue campaign that includes more demos and live tracks than you can shred a B.C. Rich at. And if you're curious, my personal favorite Death song is "To Forgive is to Suffer" from The Sound of Perseverance, but, really, you should read on.
I feel Chuck Schuldiner looked back on his '80s albums with embarrassment. In interviews he dismissed the words to Scream Bloody Gore as childish blood 'n' guts fantasies, and the music as sloppy and poorly performed. He was right: The album's lyrics are rife with slasher flick violence, misogyny, homophobia, and sexual aggression, traits which clashed with the narrative of self-discovery and acceptance he crafted around his later, more sophisticated works. The music, as exemplified by the pummeling "Zombie Ritual," is gloriously raw, fast, and primitive (and ridiculously catchy). But for all the song's Beavis and Butt-head-grade lyrics and flailing rhythms, Schuldiner had penned a powerful mission statement for all future death metal bands to follow. Chuck's adolescent rage proved infectious, and perhaps in spite of themselves, Death and contemporaries Possessed spawned legions of imitators who solidified and improved upon the genre's tropes.
But by the release of Human, Schuldiner wasn't that angry teenager anymore. The most blatant evidence of his philosophical shift was Death's logo, as Chuck famously cleaned up its cobwebs, mopped its the blood, banished the Reaper and righted the inverted crucifix. Some in the metal underground still view his embrace of progressive values (both musical and social) as a betrayal, a cop-out to political correctness and the same dreaded "artistic maturation" that had claimed Metallica. I can't speak for Schuldiner's motives for evolving his sound and image, but he placed himself in a unique historical position by having been one of the earliest codifiers of an orthodox death metal style, and then sacrilegiously expanding that very genre's vocabulary by integrating elements of jazz fusion and progressive rock. Despite Chuck's rug sweeping of his pubescent albums, to progress artistically demands a starting point to progress from. I firmly believe that every new Death album was a reaction to the last, and without a song like "Zombie Ritual" there could be no "The Philosopher." It is precisely Schuldiner's development as both a person and a musician that makes him so fascinating and divisive. He showed the foresight and courage to not only help create the rules of death metal, but to demonstrate how to break them. And there's no shame in that.
At the age of 15, I got heavily into the tape trading thing. I was about to form my first band (Thanatos) and me and the drummer-to-be in that band were trading tapes with people all over the world. Most of those people were 15-16 years old as well and some of them had also just formed or were about to form bands of their own. Among our pen pals were people like Killjoy (Necrophagia), Ken Owen and Bill Steer (Carcass) and guys from Florida called Kam Lee and Chuck Schuldiner. They had this band called Mantas going, but were about to change their name to Death. We traded demo tapes and live tapes and even recordings of rehearsals. I clearly remember a rather f---- up recording of a song called "Rigor Mortis" done with a microphone and a tape recorder, which was obviously about to die any day now. You could hear the microphone falling over and being put back again ... hilarious! But the music itself wasn't hilarious at all! When their new three-song demo tape arrived in the mail one day, we all knew we were listening to something special; the first power chords of the opening track, "Infernal Death," sounded so brutal, raw and evil that we stared at each other in disbelief. It was unlike anything we've ever heard before. Right there we witnessed the birth of death metal. Death went on and became a more technical band and broadened their horizon. I pretty much like all the albums they've made, but the sheer intensity of Scream Bloody Gore, which featured the aforementioned track in its full glory, has never been matched again.
"Flattening of Emotions" from Human is an absolute masterpiece. From the "Hot for Teacher"-esque drum intro to the progressive approach of the opening bars of the song to the blistering salvos of double bass that pervade the entire composition, this tune achieves greatness as well as lays down the foundation for every Death song to have followed it. "Flattening of Emotions" is a benchmark, a performance pinnacle and furious mission statement; that death metal will no longer be relegated to mere brute strength, but will evolve past troglodytism into sublime art, where precision and passion will triumph over perfunctory extremism. With "Flattening of Emotions," Death imposed its will on death metal, and secured its evolution. Death metal was given a choice: Adapt or Die. Adapt it did.
Individual Thought Patterns is the masterpiece Death record for me. It's the record where songwriting, production, lyrics, musicianship and hooks all converge to form a classic album. I remember being stuck in a tour van on some rural Eastern European road, and someone put the CD in the stereo. You can deny neither the skills nor the cohesion of the players on this record. Each musician is an institution unto himself, and this album goes right where so many sum-of-parts records go wrong. [Guitarist] Andy LaRoque's surprising inclusion is a true stroke of genius. The real treat is that after an initial listen to such a progressive and technical record, I actually remembered most of the songs, most notably "The Philospher." This was a death metal song that was instantly stuck in my head.
From the iconic opening guitar arpeggios, to the audible (!) groove of the bass line and one of the heaviest and most memorable choruses in the Death canon, this song hits every nail on the head. The guitar soloing is effortlessly fluid and melodic; and nothing negative ever needs to be said about Gene Hoglan's acumen behind the kit.
Too often, the best you can hope for in metal lyricism is base comedy and adolescent sloganeering. Chuck stands apart as a lyricist in that he brazenly and unapologetically writes personal and insightful lyrics. While they may adhere to the tried-and-true vocal cadence of his peers, there is an openness and candor to them that is hard to deny. In "The Philosopher" he tackles subjects that fly in the face of the knuckle-dragging-Metal-orthodoxy, as he discusses and condemns narrow-minded bigotry and undue sexual judgementalism. His message, unlike so many of his contemporaries, is a universal and human message of tolerance, unadorned with the ignoble trappings generally associated with the genre.
As a middle-schooler who was acquainted with only the most obvious and basic metal staples, I had absolutely no frame of reference for what I was hearing the first time I heard Death's "Overactive Imagination." The level of technical precision was beyond anything I had ever heard, but the technicality wasn't the entire story. The songs were structured in a way that was compelling, yet totally natural. It was everything I ever wanted to hear, but never knew existed. I would only get about six years of Death fandom before Chuck's untimely demise. I would never get to see them live either. In spite of all that, there are very few bands that have shaped me as much as Death did, both as a musician and as a listener.
Symbolic is by far my most favorite Death album; mainly because of the higher pitched growls and the guitars having a more progressive approach than in previous releases. And 10 years after Chuck Schuldiner's death, it is easy to say the legacy he left behind continues to influence musicians all over the world. But it wasn't until the summer of 2009 when my appreciation of this album came full circle, when I met [former Death bassist] Kelly Conlon on tour with Monstrosity. We spoke of many things such as life and music; I shared pictures of my cats and he of his dog back on the East Coast that he missed and loved so much. Death not only left their music and a lasting impression on me, but also a great friend.
After first hearing the music of Death in my mid-teens, it didn't take long for me to identify Chuck Shuldiner as a primary musical and creative role model. Touched by the power, energy and uniqueness of Death's music in a way that I had never before experienced, it seemed an obvious and foregone conclusion to idolize "Evil" Chuck. And unlike the vast majority of his early death metal peers, Chuck was unafraid to go beyond the lyrical comfort zone of terror and malevolence.
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