VIVUS!

"Vivus!" is a live album by US technical death metal act Death. It's actually a 2 disc compilation of the two live albums "Live in L.A. (Death & Raw) (2001)" and "Live in Eindhoven '98 (2001)", which both feature the lineup that recorded "The Sound of Perseverance (1998)". "Vivus!" was released through Relapse Records in February 2012. The compilation also features new liner notes and unpublished photos.

"Vivus!" features two full shows, but there are fadeouts between tracks, so it's not necessarily apparent that you are listening to full shows. You never get a "full concert" feeling. As both shows were recorded during the same tour, there are several tracks that appear twice. The tracklists mostly represent the four last technical death metal albums by the band. It's only "Zombie Ritual" and two versions of "Pull the Plug" that represent the first three more old school death metal albums.

The band are well playing, but the processed high pitched growls by Chuck Schuldiner, sound odd and don't do the music much justice. But I guess it's no surprise as the vocals on "The Sound of Perseverance (1998)" also sounded like this. However it's the sound quality on both shows that's the real show stopper. We're talking good bootleg sound quality, but the sound is nowhere near professional live sound quality.

Quite frankly I find "Vivus!" a pretty unnecessary release. Even hardcore fans deserve live shows with a better sound quality than this and I'm actually a bit surprised that a respectable label like Relapse Records would release something like this. Live albums by death metal acts are for the most part hit and miss, and "Vivus!" most certainly belongs in the latter catagory. I predict that even the most hardcore fans will have a hard time enjoying this and a 2 star (40%) rating is warranted.