Symbolic

I am not one that cares about labels that much. I do enjoy little quibbles with my friends about whether early Sepultura is death or thrash metal or if Tormentor were first or second wave, however, if it is good, well structured music with atmosphere and a purpose then I will like it. On the other end of the spectrum though there is this "Progressive Death Metal" album which is neither progressive, nor really death metal and also average for the most part.

When using the phrase "Progressive", people seem to either be saying one of two things. It could either be influenced by the ingenious work written by progressive rock bands in the 1970's, or the general meaning of the phrase which would be more on the side of avant-garde, such as writing something original or ahead of the times.

Sadly when "Progressive" is used as a prefix to another label of metal, the result normally seems to be a watering down of a genre that is innovative in itself, therefore almost making it more of a regression that a progression. An example of this is Enslaved's recent albums of "Progressive Black Metal" being a sound of stale and uninspired hard rock losing the mystical magic of their debut, which was a progressive masterpiece (in the sense of unique combined with influences from the 70's). It may be somewhat intelligently written with some reasonable Floyd worship but adds nothing to the genre except for maybe attracting more mainstream fans.

Rant aside this album has all the signs of trying to be progressive but in fact becomes regressive. Death were obviously a very popular and important early death metal band with a string of demo's and a couple of classic death metal albums. The first two Death albums were original, heavy, catchy and still coherently written pieces of sickening art. Then Chuck thought it would be a good idea to change the sound a bit. This is not necessarily a bad idea, but if you look back on death metal in the mid to late ninetees, it seems to normally end up being somewhere from a bad idea, to an embarassing idea. Albums like "Heartwork", "Domination", "Slaughter of the Soul", and there are many more, have been dimissed by the metal underground and applauded by the metal mainstream for years and somehow the similar move by Death appears to me to have been largely ignored. What Death appear to have done here is take their earlier material and replaced the intensity with what is probably pre-conceived "intelligence" but is actually a lack of imagination and rather sterile material for the most part.

I do state all these things with the forethought that this is supposed to be some kind of metal classic so my score may be strict, but with other real classics under their belt and such a saturation of the market with the introduction of the internet I feel albums need a stricter analysis. There are some interesting parts to the album, the title track for example sounds more like power/thrash metal featuring Chuck's new high pitched vocal style, admittedly with the solo being admirable and drumming being impeccable. Crystal Mountain is also worth a listen due to the interesting moulding of ecoustic guitar around a fairly rocky song-base and may be one of the only sougs that I think could be linked to the 70's progressive rock scene, although still only very lightly and not coming anywhere near the brilliance of the 70's prog bands..

Unfortunately this album just does not do much for me. Their attempt at being progressive hardly ever finds its feet, with most of the album featuring heavy or thrash metal riffs with a boring clean production with Chuck Schuldiner's new vocals being less enthused than before. I find during the album a lot of the riffs seem to just meander and fizzle out to nothing in the context of the song. Take "Zero Tolerance" for example, a lot of groove (actually sounding like Pantera riffs sometimes, I'm afraid) and a couple of solo's that could have come from any of the Bay Area thrash bands and you have a song that is by no means offensive, it's just not something I am going to go back and listen to much as it comes off as somewhat unoriginal "Death-Metal-Light".

A notable use for this album is that it seems to be pretty effective at getting people who are not into the more extreme forms of music to realise there is another world out there. It has the catchiness of sing along choruses, the pseudo-groove riffs that progressive metal bands seem to love, and much more liberal lyrics than the classics of death metal. That does not help the album in any real sense, but it has converted some of my friends to realise that if you dig deep enough you can find more profound pieces of work than just checking out how fast Jordan Rudess can shred those keys!

The technicality of albums is not something I am really interested in, purely for the fact that practice makes perfect. If you have the time to sweep pick 6 hours a day, you will eventually become good at it. This by itself does not make you a genius, however, if you put these techniques to good use, then you have something. Death's technical material seems the worst out of the era to be honest, with the true originators of the sound not losing any intensity and some actually gaining it.

Take Atheist for example, very technical but still aggressive with the songwriting to match. Cynic, who's members also were quintessential to the first technical Death album, managed to create an incredible marriage of jazzy, 70's prog induced death/thrash metal. Lastly Cryptopsy created a technical and brutal release in "None So Vile", taking extremity to new levels but still having the song writing skills to keep the tracks chaotic but tamed in a compact structure. Death on the other hand seemed to focus alot on the rock and heavy metal aspects after "Human" and never really matched the true innovators of the technical/progressive releases by the aforementioned bands, or their earlier groundbreaking material.

Overall this is not an album I would really advise for anybody unless you are just starting to try and get into death metal. Otherwise there are so many classics from an exiting, boundary pushing period of time rather than the rock induced format of the genre that bands seem to utilise in the mid-to-late ninetees, that this record is just not really necessary. Overall you will be more than satisfied with Atheist, Pestilence or Gorguts if technical death metal is your thing, or "Scream Bloody Gore" or "Leprosy" if you want a release from this once great band.