Individual Thought Patterns

Ahhh Death, when people hear this word they usually think one of three things. "Oh my God I don't want to die!" "Death is just a fact of life." or "Death is one of the greatest (or worst) metal bands of all time." Naturally us metalheads will think of the third quote before immediately going to first and second quotes.

Fortunately for people who love metal a band called Death formed and would be one of the pioneers of the death metal genre.

As with anything that is new work needs to be done with it before it can become perfect.

Individual Thought Patterns is one of Death's mid-releases and is the second album I've listened to other than Sound of Perseverance. While it was SoP that had the progressive elements that I so enjoy it is Individual Thought Patterns that heils itself above it's older self. Although the blue prints of death metal had already been written by a younger Death and other bands (early Sepultura and Atheist for example) this album would become a semi-final version of what death metal was to be.

Abandoning the concept of blood, death, and gore "Individual Thought Patterns" was mainly about the idea of humanity and religion. With hardly a mention of gore splatter, Death proved with this album that death metal need not to consist of stupid "Grr hack bits, crush bloody body, rape carcass on the maggott infested floor, grrr." lyrics to succeed.

The music of ITP is intensely good, but is short from perfection. Chuck Schuldiner proved on this release that he is and was one of the greatest metal guitarist of all time, and also one of the best death metal vocalists of all time. Many of the riffs he plays on these songs would be difficult for the average person to play none the less perform and sing at the same time. It's quite obvious that Chuck had training on the guitar not based around the metal or rock genre listening to the way he's able to make certain scales work so damn well with the music.

Another thing I love about this album are the bass riffs. I know I talk about the bass in most of my reviews but it's because the bass is usually a background instrument to provide the low end. You usually don't hear it, but when it's gone you miss it.

Not with ITP though, the bass riffs are just as skillfully played if not slightly more than the guitar riffs. I love music that doesn't treat the bass like some sort of ignored and abused stepchild.

The drumming on this album is perfection, and unlike most death metal you don't hear too many blastbeats on this album. The drumming never goes off into it's own little world like some death metal I know *cough* Origin *cough*.

I was especially pleased to come across this album for $5.99. Whoever sold it back must have had some financial burdens because I sure as hell wouldn't sell it back for $1.00.

My advice is to buy this album if you love Death, or death metal. It gets a 97% because although it could be more differentiating it's still not as redundant as SoP.

97/100