I think I was on mushrooms when I found out. That’s what my memory tells me, but it could be faulty. I just remember hustling two cold Milwaukee’s Best Lights from my friend Matt’s dorm, taking them across the hall and one door down, and beating on the door. When Anthony answered I was hit with the sudden realization that I barely knew this dude. In fact, between knocks I had completely forgot why I was beating on his door with shitty beers in my hands.
He probably said something like “what’s the word, man?”. “Uhh…fuck”. Silence. Then my scumbag brain woke up. “Oh yeah. Chuck Schuldiner fucking died, and you’re the only person on this floor who cares about music, so you’re going to drink this beer with me.”
He didn’t know who Chuck was, but he still indulged me on my ass-backwards memorial. Death was an amazing band and at the time I was deep in my defense of their final album The Sound of Perseverance against a group of friends who…for some crazy reason, didn’t appreciate it the same way they appreciated every other Death album. My friend Ben only liked the Steve Digiorio records (they were 100 percent the reason he picked up his own fretless bass), my friend Drew fucking SOLD his copy, leaving me all alone and blown away by the absolute shredded, end-of-the-line quality that Chuck’s voice had taken on at the end of his career/life. Here’s proof. The track is called “Spirit Crusher”.
Human at sight, Monster at heart. Don’t let it inside, it could tear you right apart.
Also, the clarity on his vocals. Possibly some of the most “audible” brutal singing ever recorded.
He died of brain cancer in 2001. He was the mastermind of Death, the sole songwriter. He hired new guns for almost every album, and his taste in talent was impeccable. Gene Hoglan, Steve Digiorio, James Murphy, Andy LaRocque. The list goes on.
8 years down the road and very little had changed. I was on my couch with Anthony, who after that day became one of my best friends. We were smoking weed and talking about metal. I was very animatedly shoving all kinds of metal that I had discovered down his throat because again, this is a man who appreciates music. He doesn’t know all the metal bands or reference points but he has fucking taste, and just like that day in the dorms, I have to take what I can get. My passion for it has exploded lately, after many many years of indifference towards metal music, it came back on rails. I can’t stop now, and the band that brought me back to it was Death.
What happened between those two points? I can’t really tell you. I fell in love a few times, I left college and went straight to New York where I partied, paid attention, gained friends, lost friends, made mistakes, etc. There has been nothing special about my journey up until this point, no matter how I want to frame it. I “came to” one day on a walk into my office. I was talking to a co-worker who has an amazing metal band called Sannhet. We were talking about Death, and I noted how The Sound of Perseverance represented everything great about Death and everything problematic about them. It’s just…parts…slammed up against each other. Each one is better than the last, but there is little care given to transitions. It’s urgent. It doesn’t rest. It’s like watching the T-1000 die in that lava. It’s riveting, and brilliant. And what ensued was a conversation about metal. This was a novelty for me. I hadn’t done it in years. I went straight to my office and put on all the Death I could find.
Suddenly my shitty job was tolerable. I cranked that shit and let it drown out the weird mix of drama and drudgery that you can only find in the music business. At the end of that day, I was a full-blown metal fan again.
Which is why I’m writing this. I want to talk about metal with you guys. Going forward, I’ll be writing about metal from time to time. I’m not trying to be an authority on all things “new” in the metal world (because there is a lot of crap), I just want to single out and curate some stuff that I think needs a little more love. Stuff that I hope can break out of the typical “metal” conversation into the general “music” conversation.
So if you guys are down, let’s do this. I’m beating on your doors with a frosty light beer and I’m not leaving until we listen to something fucking LOUD.
This spotify playlist, entitled “Popular Indie Rock and Jazz Fusion” will consistently be updated with metal I dig. I’m pretty discriminating with what gets added, unless its that one Ma$e song with DMX.
New shit that is noteworthy:
Nachtmystium has a new track called “As Made”. You can stream it over at Invisible Oranges, whatever that is. The track is incredible. It takes the blueprint of Ministry’s two headed Land of Rape and Honey/ Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste era (rigid, pummeling repetition + squeals and digital destruction) and applies it to Black Metal. Seriously brilliant.
Gojira just released a new track from this album they’ve been working on forever. I’m not breaking any new ground at all by thinking that these guys are the cat’s ass. Listen and you’ll understand.
