HUMAN

If you play Death Metal and you hire three prog rock musicians, you get albums like Human.

Although still brutal vocals and music, Human comes with an........ ehh..... human touch. The three prog rock musicians put their prog label on the music and the only death musician in this incarnation of Death put his Death Metal label on his part (vocals and some guitars). Unfortunate; most people only listen to the vocals and the guitars and end up with Death Metal. But listening to the album, the prog rock influences is there. From the melodies to the bass, guitars and drums. I wonder what would had happened if Chuck Schuldiner's vocals was replaced with clean vocals and some of the double bass drums was replaced with more jazzy drums ? An intriguing thought !

Not that the songs needs this clean up. The songs themselves are good. DEATH changed to a more challenging sound and the songs also became a lot more complex than on their two previous albums. Human is a bridge between DEATH's straight forward Death Metal albums and the more complex final albums. The Cosmic Sea track is the best example. I still regard DEATH as a Death Metal Light band, but Human was a welcome step in the right direction. It is a good album and worth checking out.

3.5 stars