#steve digiorgio

[ch3rrypieee]

[josiebelladonna]

i want to wake up like this every morning ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

[metalsongoftheday]

Tuesday, December 24: Sadus, "Fight or Die"

Death metal was barely a thing when Sadus made their way onto the scene, and “Fight or Die” was much more of a thrash tune than concurrent numbers by Death and Morbid Angel.  Indeed, the most death metal aspect of the track was Darren Travis’ vocals, which were theoretically an early version of Cradle of Filth-esque shrieking but really just sounded like someone was poking him with a stick and he was really irritated about it.  Most of the historical value here came from the pop of Steve DiGiorgio’s bass, since this was one of his earliest recordings and proved he was a talent to keep an eye on.  Otherwise, “Fight or Die” was a short freakout that positioned Sadus firmly among the next wave of Bay Area thrash, and while it didn’t herald a new era, it did play a role in the development of extreme metal in its most primitive form.

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

Control Denied

[teababe27]

Pics from Saturday’s Testament concert, Part 2.

Some of my favorite pics I took in this bunch (bottom left especially).

[thehardgroove]

DEATH Human tshirt, 1991

[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. 

[bretthorton]