Human

First things first, the production is the only real let-down of this album I feel, while the drums and vocals sound good and also seem to be in the right places in the mix and the guitars have that awesome sharp and crunchy sound to them, the bottom end sounds muddy (somewhat like on Suffocation's Effigy of the Forgotten, but not that pronounced) and Steve DiGorgio's bass is buried there and it's hard to make out his awesome bass lines (afterall we all know what he's capable of, listen to Individual Thought Patterns) and that is quite a shame.

From those first brooding drum beats you know this is going to be something special. The first song, Flattening of Emotions starts relatively slowly but soon explodes into a cacaphony of double bass drumming and violent riffs. The first thing you notice about this albums is what a great drummer Sean Rienert is. He (as well as the other new members) bought a level of musicianship to Death that had not been seen until now and it pays off.

After Flattening of Emotions we have Suicide Machine, possibly the best Death song ever written. This song has it all, jackhammer double-kick, brilliant riffs and solos from Chuck and Paul Masvidal, and great bass lines from Steve DiGorgio (strain and you can make them out) as well as Chuck's brutal but decipherable vocals. This is also chucks best vocal performance as well, his growl has the right balance between brutal and understandable (they got a bit too high pitched on the later albums, especially on The Sound of Perseverance). Carrying on from excellent openers the album continues in much the same fashion, which is not say the album gets repetitive, just that it retains its high quality all the way through! Together as one has some great technical riffing that showcases Chuck and Paul's skills on the guitar, and Lack of Comprehension is another high point, with it's soft intro providing a bit of a change in scenery, even once it gets going it is a little slower than the previous songs, but soon picks up the pace yet again, with lightning-fast double kick and Sean showing off his fancy, jazzy cymbal techniques. Cosmic Sea is the one real oddity of the album, a slow, almost fusion-ish instrumental track that Reinert and Masvidal no doubt had a large hand in writing, the Jazz influences are very evident here. It has some amazing guitar solos and we finally get to hear DiGorgio's bass properly. The closer, Vacant Planets is everything one would come to expect for song on the Human album, the usual blend of brutality, technicality and melody into one amazing package.

Lyrically this album is great too, with more of Chuck's thoughts and social commentary.

Human definitely marked the beginning of a new era for Death, and what a great change it was. In 1991 not much else came close. One of my favourite albums from Death and and indeed the Death Metal genre as a whole, truly a must have even for someone with the slightest interest in Death Metal.