Death - Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

When I was younger and Death had only released their initial trio of albums I think I may have preferred this album to the other two. Through the years, though, I've come to the conclusion that, aside from the novelty that this was about as intense of an album as you could get during the time of it's release (with the exception of Napalm Death's 'Scum'), I found it to be rather boring and despite what certain pseudo-intellectual bloggers might tell ya, I'll take Deicide's debut over this any day of the week.

The identity of the songs on display here vary a bit more than on 'Leprosy' but they're all still painfully straightforward and after about 1/2-way through the first track I'm already planning my exit-strategy.

Sure, this sounded groundbreaking and pretty damn cool when it came out but it didn't take long for me to outgrow it and unlike most fanatics out there, I actually prefer the 3rd and 4th albums over the first two. Oddly enough, I'm not a fan of Symbolic whatsoever and the small amount I've heard off of the last album (The Sound of Perseverance) did little to nothing for me as well. I feel that Death pretty much peaked right smack dab in the middle of their (Chuck's) career with Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy being stepping stones toward bigger and better things. Innovative? Perhaps in terms of intensity but again, for me the novelty of being a death metal band so early in the game wore off once I heard what else was out there such as Carcass, Pestilence and Entombed. Those were band's that were creating material that catered to my imagination in a way that Death never could.