The artist: Death were no doubt an iconic band in heavy metal. They made way for tons of death metal bands and are highly regarded as one of the death metal pioneers along with Morbid Angel and Possessed. Despite the critical acclaim for being a major influence on death metal, the frontman Chuck Schuldiner was always modest about his band and declared it as a metal band and nothing more. Chuck may have disagreed with the death metal label but the rest of the world sure as hell thinks otherwise but not in a way against him. It's very unfortunate that Chuck passed away almost a decade ago and this week's Metal Monday will pay a tribute to the band who did a lot to death metal despite Chuck's modesty.
The album: Individual Thought Patterns is a highly technical album from Death. Technical death metal is described as having more complexity for riffs, rhythms and song structures and Individual Thought Patterns fits that to a T. The amount of riffs this album alone contains is insane. Within 39 minutes, Death have managed to fit in at least 30 riffs in one single album and the longest track out of them all is Mentally Blind clocking in at 4:45. Considering that thought, you know there has to be many changes in song structures throughout the album and to remember every moment in this album as well all the great riffs heard in one single album has to be the best reason to listen to this album many times throughout your life.
The song: Any song from this album can be used to show the insane constant change of paces over a few minutes of music but one grand example is In Human Form. This song starts off with one riff to attack the listener right away but will be far from done. This riff is only an introduction to the song which is immediately dropped just 15 seconds in and it's a riff that could have been used on any other death metal song and stick to it. You're not even given enough time to hear Chuck's extraordinary vocals for death metal. The solo is very, VERY short but you know what, it happens to be very sweet as well. Chuck returns to vocals once again but it's not long until he takes the band to another vocal break and then back to him again. He does pack the second solo together with a lead to prepare yet more barrel rolls for the song. It should be noted that Steve DiGiorgio on bass is crystal clear at all times and you can be sure that he makes some memorable basslines for this song alone.
The lyrics may tell of extraterrestrial going undercover as a human being to fool humanity but actually that was just a metaphor. What he refers to as aliens here are the corrupted human beings that exist in the world. To Chuck, they are not human beings and rather aliens who must be stopped. Overall, In Human Form is a very intense song. The multiple song sections make it feel like Chuck Schuldiner wrote four songs and merged them into one song lasting only or a mere four minutes. For that, there is no padding in the album at all and the pace is so fast that it makes four minutes seem like fourty seconds. That with sinister sounding lyrics, you can bet this is top notch for death metal and this is only one song from the album analysed!
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