Death

Ah yes, the state of Florida. "Come visit!" the elderly coo. Where else can you gorge on early bird specials at the overwhelmingly mammoth number of Shoney's clones? Why not follow up your late-afternoon feast with a heaping pile of over-prescribed painkillers? COME ON OUT TO DISNEYLAND AND TOP THINGS OFF WITH A SHANKING BY TONY MONTANA HIMSELF!

Florida, I want nothing to do with you, however, I will briefly commend you for being the spawning grounds of death metal during much of the 80's and 90's. Somehow your fetid landscape has managed to generate famous acts like like Cannibal Corpse, Cynic, Atheist, Morbid Angel, and most notably, Death.

The band Death is a criminally underexposed forefather of modern extreme music. They had a good run, pioneered much of what is contemporary death metal, and (most importantly) didn't take the liberty to suddenly cut their hair and start writing songs at half the tempo of their earlier material. With this being said, you're still not going to find washed up, B-list celebrities prattling about how cool and "groundbreaking" the band was during some bullshit VH1 special.

Human's release was a landmark indicator that Death had truly matured, both in lyrical content and technical musicianship. Paul Masvidal (whom you may have heard of from the legendary group Cynic) and Chuck Schuldiner shred their Fuckin brains out on this. The drum patterns? Relentless. Lyrically, the songs no longer centered around monotonous gore themes and instead moved to more introspective and emotional realms. The band also managed to take some strides in moderately de-cheesifying their logo (seriously, a grim reaper and cobwebs?).

The 20th Anniversary reissue of Human goes above and beyond the call of duty by tacking on two entire discs worth of demos and rehearsal tracks that would cause even the most spergin' of Death completists to thoroughly soil their relaxed-fit Lee jeans in warm satisfaction. The remixing and remastering effort on the record gives it a modernizing "boost" without excessively condensing or losing any core essence. Overall, the presentation of this breakthrough album is about as ultimate as Human-ly possible (can we start making it a policy to include at least one bad pun based on the album's title per review?).

Death is responsible for an extremely influential, intelligent record which still sounds absolutely awesome when listened to today. In an era and genre where hyper-masculine and hilariously excessive imagery was overtly applauded, Death managed deviate from the "scene standard" and write music that stood the test of time. If you're looking for a top-tier sample of classic death metal, Human is truly it.