Scream Bloody Gore is the debut studio album by American death metal band Death, released on May 25, 1987, by Combat Records.[1] It is considered by many to be "the first true death metal record".[2][3]Chuck Schuldiner, the band’s cofounder and leader, performed guitar, bass and vocals, and composed all tracks on the album.[4]
John Hand is noted in the album's credits as playing rhythm guitar, though this was incorrect and Hand was only in the band for a short period and never performed or recorded on the album.[5] This is also the only Death album to feature drummer Chris Reifert, who had joined for the Mutilation demo, and the only one of the band's albums to not be recorded at Morrisound Recording.[6]
Perseverance Holdings, Ltd. and Relapse Records reissued the album on May 20, 2016, on CD, vinyl, and cassette.[7] The album was remastered for this release, and also included the original Florida session as well as recordings of rehearsals performed in 1986.
Background and recording
The album was recorded twice.
The first recording of the album was done in Florida at American Recording Studios, which was not equipped to produce. According to Chris Reifert, "[the engineers] just looked at us blankly, like they didn't know anything about metal." This version only featured guitar and drum tracks, and was rejected by Combat Records when it was sent to them. "They heard what had been going on and said 'no, this is not gonna work,' so we had to scrap that plan," according to Reifert.[8] The track listing consisted of "Torn to Pieces", "Legion of Doom", "Scream Bloody Gore", "Sacrificial Cunt" (later shortened to "Sacrificial" because the label asked the band to do so, possibly because "they didn't want to get P.M.R.C. on their case"),[9]"Mutilation", "Land of No Return", and "Baptized in Blood".[10]
Combat Records sent Death to a studio called the Music Grinder in Los Angeles. Reifert said it felt like an "airplane hangar."[8] Schuldiner and Reifert re-recorded the album with Randy Burns as producer.[1] This session was released as the complete album by label Combat Records (later Relativity).[1] Once returning to Florida, the first session was released as a promotional tape, and was eventually bootlegged. "Legion of Doom" was a longtime staple of Death's rehearsals and live shows, and was indeed the first song written, reaching back to when they were known as Mantas.
Despite the many songs written during Death's demo days, only half of them were re-recorded for the album, the rest being new compositions. "Infernal Death" and "Baptized in Blood" originally appeared on the Infernal Death demo. "Mutilation", "Zombie Ritual" and "Land of No Return" originally appeared on the Mutilation demo, and "Evil Dead" and "Beyond the Unholy Grave" were originally on Death By Metal.[1] "Beyond the Unholy Grave" and "Land of No Return" were also cut from the vinyl and cassette versions of the album, though were included as CD-only bonus tracks and on subsequent re-releases in other formats, along with two live audio tracks taken from the Ultimate Revenge II video.
Music and lyrics
The style of Scream Bloody Gore has been described as drawing from bands such as Possessed, Slayer and Sepultura, fusing "the wild vitriol of thrash and black metal" with "a handful of swanky melodies" and "insanely" violent lyrics.[11] The sound has been called "primitive."[12] Writer Ian Christe stated in Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal that the album emulated hardcore punk, "[evoking] the dark moods of horror sound tracks from the drive-inzombie and cannibalhorror films of George Romero".[13]Metal Forces described the album as "death metal at its utmost extreme, brutal, raw and offensive – the kind that separates the true death metallers from countless trend-following wimps".[14] Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork described the album as having a "weed-and-beer-scented basement atmosphere", and the music as "bludgeoning and immediate". The album's lyrics contain themes such as zombies and slasher film-style violence.[15] Steve Huey of AllMusic said that although Scream Bloody Gore appears "slightly musically amateurish" in comparison to Death's later releases, it "trades polish for savage, gut-wrenching force and speed."[4] Arthur von Nagel of American progressive metal band Cormorant observed, "the album's lyrics are rife with slasher flick violence, misogyny, homophobia, and sexual aggression, traits which clashed with the narrative of self-discovery and acceptance he crafted around his later, more sophisticated works".[16] Chuck Schuldiner played using a Boss distortion pedal on the album.[17] Certain songs on the album were inspired by horror movies. "Regurgitated Guts" was inspired by the 1980 film City of the Living Dead (a.k.a. The Gates of Hell), "Beyond the Unholy Grave" was influenced by the 1981 film The Beyond, and "Zombie Ritual" was inspired by the 1979 film Zombie, all of which were directed by Italian director Lucio Fulci.[18] "Torn to Pieces" was inspired by Make Them Die Slowly.[19] "Evil Dead" was named after the film of the same name, while the title track was inspired by Re-Animator.[20][failed verification]
Scream Bloody Gore is often considered the first death metal album. Although some critics consider Seven Churches by Possessed to be the first death metal record,[25] Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic writes that, "Seven Churches was a transition between thrash metal and death metal, while Scream Bloody Gore defined the core elements of death metal".[26] According to music journalist Joel McIver, Death's debut album was a "turning-point in extreme metal",[27] and qualified it as "the first true death metal album".[28] Canadian journalist Martin Popoff indicated Schuldiner as the musician who introduced "a new level of convolution that will mark the beginnings of the next stage in extreme."[21]
In 2016, a re-release of the album was one of the top 200 selling albums in the United States in its first week of release, marking Death's first appearance in the US Billboard 200 chart at No. 174.[1]
