The Sound of Perseverance

As much as Death seems like the evolution of death metal throughout the 80s and 90s, they were also trendsetters in a way. Alongside the likes of Atheist and Cynic, from Human onwards, they established a more progressive metal base unto death metal for bands like Gorguts, Ulcerate and eventually VoidCeremony and Tomb Mold to expand upon. That much sounds like quite the fucking resume. But I’m not reviewing the divisive Individual Thought Patterns, nor the excellent Symbolic; instead, it’s the album that would become Death’s dying breath, The Sound of Perseverance. In many ways, the album that many a progressive death metal band would get their general sound from. The angular riffs, the way Chuck and Shannon warp them to sound like the coolest shit ever, Richard Christy’s overactive drumming – it’s mostly stuff you’ve heard extensively in the 25 years since the album’s release, but we have to determine how much of that was just some friendly competition… and how much of it was out of expanding on what Chuck wasn’t able to.

Frankly, on its own terms, The Sound of Perseverance is an album of ups and downs. Even the more vitriolic of critics back in the day had to admit “Voice of the Soul” is a culmination of everything that Chuck had wanted to work towards as the acoustics and the electric riffs come together to create a truly soulful experience. The acoustic riffs are excellently technical in their approach, with as many notes as a symphony of equivalent length and the drawn-out metallic notes add some harsh bits of flair to proceedings. It comes across rather… soulful, as it’s a struggle between a perfectly calm medication, and recognizing the stresses in life that would cause one to begin a more spiritual journey through life. A truly transcendent piece if ever there was one, especially in 1998.

The other songs are definitely pastiches of what would come to form progressive death metal for the next 25 years. Every riff, every melody, every composition – you’ve heard a modern prog death album, you’ve heard them emulate Chuck and his merry band here! But as one of the pioneering albums, well, let’s just say that the first wheels were a tad square – though learning that this was made of old Control Denied demo tracks as a contractual obligation to Nuclear Blast at the time (basically, you do us one last Death album and we’ll let you do your Control Denied record), it does end up making sense as to why. Honestly, if you want a truly up and down album, then my friends, you’ve found one right here! On the lower end are the likes of “Story to Tell”, “To Forgive is to Suffer” and “A Moment of Clarity” (the latter actually having been from a Control Denied demo, but in a shorter, purely instrumental form). It’s like everything’s happening at once – explosive drumming, manic shredding, textured riffing, lots of harmonizations and a furious solo or seven like it’s fuckin’ Nitro – and yet, nothing’s really happening because it’s a bunch of moments hastily stitched together to create some semblance of a melody that just never emerges. Just makes the songs feel like they go on for like six years a piece.

In many ways, it does come across as a crossbreed of Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic on steroids. An overly technical and jazzy slab of delectably over the top romps that can nevertheless be stupidly melodic at the best of times. It truly is an album of excess, but it also does show the ups and downs of such an approach. Either it ironically results in a song that’s boring as shit, or a song that leaves a big grin on my face. “Flesh and the Power it Holds” certainly has the latter with its cascading bridge and crashing chorus, and “Bite the Pain” definitely channels that into a series of striking rhythms through its harmonizations and speed metal riffing (and various solo shenanigans). Although it’s from the Control Denied demo, “Bite the Pain” really does sound like a more teched-out outtake from Symbolic, given its more straightforward rhythms compared to the more excessive and complex segments throughout most of the other songs. But I’d be buggered if I didn’t mention how much “Scavenger of Human Sorrow” just takes this whole thing up to 11. An insanely fill-heavy intro leading into a brief blistering solo almost says it all, but it’s the bridge and the chorus that sell it with even more fills and tons of shredding like Chuck and Shannon’s guitars and likely the guys themselves are on fire. It winds up a glorious showcase of excess as a result.

...and then there’s the (in)famous “Painkiller” cover. Now, a lot of it could just be a combination of the album’s clean production or how every riff sounds like less of a confident stroke and more like a confident sweep, but it does fall a bit more into Death playing “Painkiller” than “Painkiller” as played by Death. The only stipulation is that it’s definitely Chuck’s vocals at their worst, as he’s straining hard trying to emulate the metal god’s inimitable wails. Not that Chuck’s vocals were really all that good on this album… or ever, to be honest, as they were always more “recognizable”, perhaps even “fitting” than flat out good, but this album is the only time Chuck’s vocals are just bad. It’s likely that Chuck wanted to cover “Painkiller” in the Control Denied album he had swimming in his head and it would’ve been quite a way to show off Tim Aymar’s pipes to the unsuspecting public at the time. But because of executive meddling, it was down on Chuck, himself, to do the cover, so his vocals kinda had to lead up to his botched Halford impression. So you just end up with these annoyingly ineffectual shrieks with these oftentimes choppy lines that sound more like vocal placeholders for a new, more fitting vocalist.

Its troubled development, coupled with the circumstances that birthed the album, certainly makes The Sound of Perseverance a rather interesting proposition. The sheer talent of the musicians as musicians are certainly on full display with all kinds of riffs, shreds and fills. But the compositions were definitely all over the shop as, for as often as they managed to slot in quite nicely and glossed to a rather melodic sheen, they were quick to look more like some Frankenstein hybrid of a half-dozen song ideas. As I said before, a truly up and down album – albeit one with a fantastic interlude.