Human

What always struck me as odd with the band Death and Schuldiner as a song-writer is the disparity in quality throughout one same album. This doesn't apply to the earlier darker death metal incarnation of the band so much as it is the scourge of Death in their prog period. There's a weird sort of tentative feel about the songs here, like they're often holding back and unwisely take the route of stubborn progressiveness. Whether Schuldiner had any real business writing progressive music at all is a serious question considering some of the material developed on an album like this one.

Some parts are absolutely inspired, with real drive and powerful forward momentum. An easy example of that is the first track, 'Flattening of emotions', at least on the heavier parts: a cohesive continuity from riff to riff and that contagious drive. Riffs that are utterly focused on the task of being grin-provoking death metal and couldn't possibly suffer from any identity crisis. In fact it's a bit of a theme that whenever Death write their heavier stuff they're immediately a different tier from whenever they turn melodic or force a progressive feel into the tracks. Those sinister palm muted tremolo picking sections with the double kicks locked in, like death itself crawling towards the listener, are bang on the money. They're reminiscent of old Death, they're death metal and ominous, and they are done well. Good stuff. But then they'll stitch that up with some sort of caricature of what progressive music is perceived to sound like if it were implemented by someone outside the genre, suddenly fancying giving it a shot. It's experimental at best, and hardly mature enough musically to qualify as "all-time classic".

The prog thing is so bad it'll often sound like the music turns aimless, if not nearly soulless. At times it practically sounds like the band are going into intermission and just play these parts to keep some sound going, to fill in the space, which is exactly what average prog rock/metal will sound like.
The melodic moments are a little bit cringey: the old 'playing Iron Maiden riffs in a heavier setting' wasn't novel, and even if it were, it would've sounded cool for a second before eroding quickly. Offering melodic riffs that borrow the basic binary system of two root note switching and whatever random dabble for a melody underneath, and doing it with so little invention and settling for an almost textbook example of it each time, really doesn't help lift the album composition wise and certainly serves as no worthy counter to the heavier vicious death metal on the other end. The melodic part on 'Flattening' is so close to the one on 'Lack of comprehension', it's quite a bit silly that both would be on the same album. Like there are no other conceivable formulas for creating melodic riffs.

Of course this is Death and since 'Leprosy' from back in 1988 they've benefited from fantastic sound production that was always years ahead of its time given this is death metal, or at least in this case, an album that merely contains death metal elements. This isn't exactly brimming with blast beats, gurgly deep growls, or twisted/technical/rapid riffs like what Suffocation or Morbid Angel and company were doing at the time. Which must be understood as the band having that plan from the start to make metal that, while retaining some of its underground vibes, would be simple and spaced out enough so as to get a clean, polished sounding result during the recording. They always wanted to make the music obvious to a degree. And it does sound quite gorgeous. Schuldiner's vocals sound superb here, and he does put in a strong performance but it seems Morrisound Studios had a bit to do with that, versus other extreme bands that sound like they got produced in basements.

The chronic problem on this is the parts that sound the best are often the most cliché and boring: those grand, atmospheric suspended power chords with some kind of a predictable lead; that trite, conservative use of harmonic minor, the "middle-eastern scale"; or worse yet, when it's time for the obligatory demonstrative guitar solo that actually get more tedious as the record progresses. After being served a mitigated cluster of tracks with redundant tendencies within songs and what feels like a bit of a trivial experience really if one looks past the gaudy production and the occasional "real Death" moments, along comes an instrumental track - 'Cosmic Semen' ... or was it 'Cosmic Sea' perhaps - and it's that same banal, underwhelming aftertaste. There's a bit of promise, and then that flatness again, like the music isn't taking off as it should and there's too little on display there.

All in all it appears this album's goal was to dazzle listeners with a wide array of moods and textures, all through the imposing prism of the outstanding production, provided the listeners got so overwhelmed by the sound and the eclectic dynamics of the album they would be kept busy and satisfied, while glossing over the fine print on the contract - which isn't as thrilling when given a closer look. Only it isn't enough to merely juxtapose a couple of genres, like the concept itself is a job well done. The artists have to be experienced and adept at writing in both styles. A fan of dark metal will probably get off on this. A death metal fan may, or may not as I refer back to a lack of extremity here (no blasts, no growls, etc...). But then, and I can't speak for every prog fan in the world but I'd imagine the average prog-head wouldn't immediately think of the album 'Human' or the band Death more broadly when the notion of "great prog music" is evoked. Which wouldn't be the case with other crossover metal bands like, say, Opeth. On a given album when they did the doom-death they did it well, and when they did prog they did it expertly.

In a certain way Death may draw a comparison with Megadeth: a band that made it very big, and was utterly respected despite writing music that was distinctly lighter and more mainstream sounding than what the rest were doing in that genre respectively. This album here contains its darker moments, and even those aren't profound, but as a whole it is clearly very different from what "death metal" instantly brings to mind when it's mentioned to someone.