Human

Death's first three albums were more or less pretty standard death metal albums that were nonetheless extremely influential to the scene. Human furthers Death's sound into a more cerebral and intellectually conscious form of death metal that would become known as technical death metal. While the progression of the band's technical skills had yet to reach its apex at this point, there is still some obvious change in sound.

The opener, "Flattening of Emotions" is an awesome introduction to Human, and it definitely fulfills the expectations set by Death's previous albums with it's crushing, yet catchy sound. The riffing has become noticeably cleaner and more defined, with more technical prowess being demonstrated. This is the case for all instruments- the lead guitar is cleaner and more discernible, and the rhythm section has become much tighter.

Human is the first Death album where a significant change in Schuldiner's haunting style of vocal delivery becomes noticeable. The vocals are more comprehensible; it is quite easy for a listener with little experience with hearing death metal vocals to make out the words, and he now growls in a slightly higher register reminiscent of the vocals on Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness. His vocals actually sound somewhat sickly, which is a good thing as it creates a more morbid sound.

The lyrics on Human are possibly the album's best attribute. Chuck writes of themes such as politics, philosophy, and suicide. He experimented with this on the previous release, Spiritual Healing, but this fully absorbed itself into Human. The themes of gore have been mostly expunged from the music at this point, but there still are some subtle instances of morbid references.

One of the greatest things about Human is the fact that it is a technical and progressive album, however, this does not take over the music completely. Bands such as Dream Theater tend to write songs purely for the purpose of showing off their musical and technical skills, paying no attention to what kind of atmosphere is produced by the final outcome. This problem that plagues a lot of progressive metal and technical death metal bands results in annoying music with awkward transitions between sections. Death wrote these songs with the actual structure in mind; it seems like the technical sound came naturally, so this issue is entirely avoided.

I will conclude my review by saying that Human is one of the greatest death metal records out there- any extreme metal fan who does not own it should definitely look in to buying it.