The members of Death and their manager Eric Greif stayed in a single motel room at the Safari Inn, near Busch Gardens, for the entire six weeks the album was recorded and mixed, although bassist Terry Butler and drummer Bill Andrews frequently went home as they lived in the Tampa area.[citation needed]
The "joke & jam" tracks on the Spiritual Healing re-issue were a result of heat exhaustion, as the band was practicing in a mini warehouse in summer with no air conditioning. The band would play a few songs then stop, as they would be close to passing out from the intense heat.[1]
This was the final Death album cover painted by Ed Repka. This period was one of massive controversy for Death, as Butler and Andrews toured Europe without Schuldiner (who refused to do the tour on the basis that it had been badly organized), with vocalist Louis Carrisalez in his place. Butler and Andrews left the band following the tour.[citation needed]
The title track features a brief keyboard arrangement performed by Death manager Eric Greif on a Kawai K1 synthesizer.[1][2]
The album had been out of print, but was reissued by Relapse Records in November 2012.[3]
Composition
Spiritual Healing has been described as "bizarre," "enigmatic" and "more avant-garde" than Death's previous releases up to that point, utilizing complex time signatures and more technical musicianship. Despite this, the album retains many of the trademark characteristics of the death metal genre, such as death growls and low-register guitar riffs. Describing the album as stylistically lying in "limbo" between the band's second and fourth albums, Matt Mills of WhatCulture assessed that Spiritual Healing "is too progressive to just be death metal, but it uses enough of the genre’s conventions that it’s not entirely progressive, either."[4] Jon Hadusek of Consequence of Sound called the album's style "minimalist heavy metal," making note of Scott Burns' "thin" production.[5]Lead guitar duties are traded off between Chuck Schuldiner and James Murphy. The album's song structures and guitar tones are rooted in thrash metal.[2] In addition to the "chuggier sections"[6], the album contains slower doom-inspired riffs, as well as sections that are more obviously melodic, a facet expanded upon by James Murphy's lead guitar work.[2] Eli Enis at Revolver characterized the album as "marking the transition between their full-on embrace of melodeath and their gory origins."[6]
Spiritual Healing has been called Death's "most lyrically dominated album," and is described as a concept album about mental illness and physical disability. It was the first of the band's albums to show Schuldiner's lyrics moving away from the gore and horror themes of the band's previous works (though some tracks do retain the "gratuitous" violence present previous releases). Instead, he chose to focus on social issues and "real life horror", including serial killers, drug addiction, abortion, genetic reconstruction (influenced by a story on That's Incredible!), and faith healers.[1][4][2]
The album's opening track “Living Monstrosity” explores drug addiction during pregnancy, and is written about an infant “born without eyes, hands, and a half a brain.” The album's third track “Defensive Personalities” explores bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.[7]
Spiritual Healing divided fans and critics upon release. The album's comparatively cleaner production values were not received well from more hardened extreme metal fans, while others welcomed the increased technical proficiency and refined songwriting.[2]
Butler and Murphy, along with Gus Rios and Matt Harvey, featured at The Brass Mug in Tampa, Florida on December 11, 2021, playing all of Spiritual Healing and "commemorating" 20 years since Schuldiner's death.[14]
