The Sound of Perseverance

Schuldiner after the death metal period turned into a song-writer who fell in love with a very limited and quite frankly boring area of the guitar fret-board, utterly enamored with the feeling those musical tones were giving him. This had been going on for all of the albums past 'Spiritual Healing', and what little death metal subsisted earlier during that period evaporated shortly after, to the point that led to this release. All the impassioned intensity that was there gradually got replaced by lukewarm, practically robotic execution of a style that is neither elaborate enough to be proper prog, and definitely nor death metal anymore. A sort of particularly redundant and unimaginative generic prog thrash. It's something like those center-left or center-right political parties, happy not taking part in the crucial debate and with their absence of identity. The technical edge on this is a lure: this is comparable to playing a game on Level 2 but acing the hell out of it. You're really, really good at it... but it's a very low level.

In fact, it is tenable that is exactly what this music is: it revels in its transparency. That's what it likes: to be neutral and clinical-sounding. The production is utterly magnificent and every instrument is entirely audible (for 1998, wow). But there's not a single proper riff in sight; that's to say, a concise segment of notes with a strong character. The parts are mostly single-note articulated, but not really riff - they're actually more something like accompaniment. Very mild in nature, and neutered. Some of the sections are horribly repetitive and predictable. It mostly sounds like 'The sound of perseverance' really means the sound of persevering with the exact same, stale song-writing as always. This is exactly what you do when you're a song-writer who runs out of ideas: you go technical because that's how you avoid ever needing to turn in strong, meaningful music. "Keep the guitars and the drums running, they'll never notice".

Seriously, 'Story to Tell' is unbelievable. Maybe they lost a bet or something. They're taking these bare, beginner guitar parts and attempting to stylize them with random embellishments like hard vibratos on the final note or adding the most benign lead on top. L-i-f-e-l-e-s-s. If you've ever written a metal song, surely, you'll know. Many of the "riffs" on this record are built around the mere power chord: beginner stage power chord progressions, or separately played low root note, higher octave or fifth, then move a step, repeat. And these aren't even songs, most of the time: they are bonafide aggregates of remotely written parts. Frankly, it's more like the Chuck Schuldiner show than proper studio songs, to which the nth band lineup surely had to comply. The basic-ness of those riffs is mind boggling - how could this music be considered strong ? Here's the safest bet coming up.

It benefited massively from the ole rep and cred. It's Death, man. That's first. It's "metal" enough for the general fan base not to go ape-shit over too much of a change in style. And finally, it sounds so good; the guitars and overall production; from a purely sensory point of view that it makes for a pleasant listen, just so long as nobody carefully examines the composition on display. Seriously, the chugging, rapid palm-muting, shredded guitar articulations...it's satisfying. There's no pleasure in shitting on this, no pleasure in listening to it. It just oozes with a distinctive vainness. This is exactly the hollowness that's implied whenever, by stark contrast, the notion of "substance" is brought up.

Finally: "Spirit...Kah-Rah-Shyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar".