#control denied

[metalcultbrigade]

Charles Michael "Chuck" Schuldiner

May 13th, 1967 – December 13th, 2001..

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[rottingwaysofmisery]

My Favorite Metal Bands

As the title suggests, I’m going to be talking about my favorite metal bands and WHY I love them and specifically my favorite album/release from them. This isn’t in any particular order, though Death and Type O Negative are my absolute favorite.

Death

My favorite Death Metal band ough I love em this band is my baby. There’s so much variety and so many fucking hooks. He always managed to make each album interesting in their own way. I love all the albums, my favorite has to be Leprosy though.

Type O Negative

This shit here is my jam, literally so many good songs from each album. My favorite is October Rust, personally.

Black Sabbath

I know this might be kind of a sin but I love the Dio-era most. Listen to “Heaven and Hell” and “Dehumanizer”

Candlemass

Literally one of the greatest doom metal bands ever, I love “Epicus Doomicus Metallus” but my personal favorite is “Nightfall”

Bathory

EEEEEEEE oh my god i think this might be my favorite black metal band. My favorite from them is “Under the Sign of the Black Mark”.

Sanctuary

Those first two albums are so fucking good, honestly I recommend both “Refuge Denied” and “Into The Mirror Black”

Venom

Oh my god their first two albums are so fucking good, please give them the song “Buried Alive” a listen off the album “Black Metal”.

Control Denied

This has to be my fav progressive metal band (even if they only lasted one album), I HIGHLY recommend “The Fragile Art of Existence”.

Root

Specifically, Zjevení bc I don’t really care much for their other stuff. Shit is just my jam, this is the kind of Black Metal I fucking love.

That’s all I can remember right now! These are definitely up there in terms of what I think are the greatest metal bands.

[thehardgroove]

[the-true-metal]

[vinylspinning]

Death: The Sound of Perseverance (1998)

After a decade of relentless innovation (even longer, if you take their demo days into account), Chuck Schuldiner’s Death delivered their seventh and final studio LP in 1998’s The Sound of Perseverance, but there was nothing here to indicate this was a swan song.

Sure, almost three years had passed since Death’s most recent and, some would say (me, me!), greatest long-player, Symbolic, and that meant Schuldiner had to recruit an entirely new supporting cast in guitarist Shannon Hamm, bassist Scott Clendenin and drummer Richard Christy.

But what else was new in Death’s turnstile-like line-up over the years?

And, as usual, you’d hardly know it based on the reliable, jaw-dropping virtuosity of all involved (heck, even Christy’s cymbal crashes sounded unique), as they tackled Chuck’s latest, masterfully crafted progressive death metal triumphs, including “Scavenger of Human Sorrow,” “Spirit Crusher” and “To Forgive Is to Suffer.” 

Along with other cerebral highlights efforts “Bite the Pain,” “Story to Tell,” “Flesh and the Power it Holds” and “A Moment of Clarity,” these tracks weren’t afraid to skip Symbolic’s uncanny immediacy (as accessible as death metal ever got!) by embracing complexity and delving deeper into the human psyche than ever before.

The only exceptions to these trends were found in an instrumental symphony of intertwining guitars called “Voice of the Soul” and a surprisingly faithful cover of Judas Priest’s “Painkiller,” which foreshadowed Chuck’s subsequent, far more traditional heavy metal project, Control Denied, one year later.

Hamm and Christy, plus singer Tim Aymar and returning bassist Steve DiGiorgio, agreed to, uh, persevere with said band, but I think it’s telling that Schuldiner chose to retire the Death moniker rather than risk sullying it with his surprisingly conventional new endeavor.

Good for him because, much as I liked Control Denied, that decision helped safeguard Death’s death metal “purity,” and ensured that theirs is one of those rare discographies in which every album can, and has, at one point or another, been championed as, the very best of the bunch.

Alas, seemingly mere moments after The Sound of Perseverance had provided such a fitting capstone to Death’s remarkable career, Chuck was gone -- felled in December of 2001 by an aggressive brain tumor he’d been battling for nearly two years. 

The only consolation -- that Schuldiner’s unfairly shortened life ultimately brought his amazing musical achievements with Death into even sharper focus -- was no consolation at all, but at least his amazing body of work will live on forever.

More Death: Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy, Spiritual Healing, Human, Individual Thought Patterns, Symbolic. 

[maquina-semiotica]

Control Denied, "Consumed"

[metalsongoftheday]

Thursday, April 8: Control Denied, “When the Link Becomes Missing”

One of the biggest “what if’s” in underground metal was what Chuck Schuldiner would’ve done with Control Denied had he not passed away from cancer a couple years after The Fragile Art of Existence.  Really, the entire Control Denied story was one of missed potential, as Schuldiner took ill right as their debut was being released.  The story went that the guitarist was ready to flip his priorities and commit to this full time while treating Death as a side project, though it should be noted that The Fragile Art of Existence had been finished for something like two years before seeing the light of day, since Schuldiner ended up making one last Death record at the behest of Nuclear Blast.  In any event, “When the Link Becomes Missing” showcased the man’s abilities beyond his legendary work with Death, offering a version of power metal that bore the intricacies associated with the likes of Nevermore while also incorporating its own progressive and artful touches without sounding overbearing or cheesy. Tim Aymar was a versatile frontman, able to hit the requisite notes but not feeling the need to show off or draw unnecessary attention to himself.  And while this was certainly more restrained than Death, Schuldiner had been inching towards something like “When the Link Becomes Missing” for some time, so the overall sound and feel was organic, and with a good portion of the lineup that recorded The Sound of Perseverance on hand, Control Denied was an interesting proposition that was poised to assume a leadership role in the underground.  It was not to be, but the fact that many still talk about The Fragile Art of Existence over 20 years later points to its staying power.