The argument over who, where and when death metal started is one that has raged since its inception in the 1980’s. I won’t be arguing all of that today, rather I’ll be looking at the second album from one of death metal’s pioneers.

Death – Leprosy

Released November 16, 1988 via Combat Records

My Favorite Tracks – Leprosy, Pull The Plug, Left To Die

Death had a very curious and drawn-out early history, with founding member Chuck Schuldiner releasing a series of demos under different names and with various casts of band members. In 1987 Death released their debut album Scream Bloody Gore. A year later found Death with Schuldiner and a totally different line-up to record the next album. Rick Rozz, who had played on some early Death demos, was back in on guitar. Bill Andrews came in on the drums. Schuldiner handled bass on the album as well as his usual guitars and vocals, though Terry Butler was brought into Death to take over bass after recording. Butler is credited with being the bassist in the album’s liner notes, however.

The album was recorded at Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida. This would become the home of early death metal as the first concentrated scene was centered in Florida. Dan Johnson was the album’s producer and Scott Burns its engineer, Burns would go on to be involved in many early death metal classics.

This album comprises 8 songs at a 38:37 runtime. All songs are credited to Chuck Schuldiner and Rick Rozz jointly, except for Leprosy and Pull The Plug solely to Schuldiner, and Primitive Ways only to Rozz. All lyrics were provided by Schuldiner.

The album opens with the title track Leprosy. This one is a bit longer than anything else on the record and burns a fair bit slower than a typical thrash song, thrash being the direct progenitor of death metal. As with a lot of death metal, there is a “still fast even when slow” quality to it.

Leprosy is a non-scholarly look at the affliction, with people cast out of their towns to literally rot away of the disease in exile. The song switches up tempo and inserts movements to keep things fresh, this is not simply a “thrash on steroids” offering. While it would be a few more albums before Schuldiner took Death in a truly progressive direction, early indications were already present on songs like this.

Up next is Born Dead. This one is a “thrash on steroids” track that shreds through a dystopian world where people are basically disease fodder and existence is about useless. Forgotten Past is next and is a straightforward chugger that sees someone use the occult to learn that they were a horrible person in a past life. After that is Left To Die, a song that exemplifies the sound of early death metal as it offers an account of what is likely a front line soldier whose life is forfeit.

Up next is one of Death’s standard-bearing songs with Pull The Plug. This is a perfect marriage of brutality and technical proficiency. As the shock value of early death metal wore off, the underlying technical aspects would become a main driver of interest in the music. Lyrically it is an awful tale of someone on life support who can hear people making the decision about what to do with him. The title offers up exactly what the subject wants to happen. Pull The Plug has been a crowd-pleaser with Death audiences since its release and it remained a staple through the span of Schuldiner’s career.

Another straightforward pounder comes next with Open Casket. The band shreds through another burner with a few tempo changes thrown in for variety as the lyrics explore the simple yet creepy concept of open casket funerals. The pounding continues on Primitive Ways, which is a look at the (generally wrong) idea that prehistoric people were bloodthirsty savages who lived in a kill or be killed environment. Not scientifically accurate stuff but suitably brutal for the proceedings at hand. The album closes with Choke On It, a song that offers the same brutal thrashing technical fare as the rest of the songs and explores the horrific concept of someone dying due to hyperventilation.

Leprosy marked a shift for Death from the absolute raw brutality of Scream Bloody Gore to a more refined thrash-centered sound that offered up a fair few technical leanings as well. The stylistic shift would become a hallmark of Death’s career – while the next album Spiritual Healing is similar in tone to Leprosy, subsequent albums would continue pushing the technical and prog envelope and leave the old school death metal sound behind just as quickly as Chuck Schuldiner and company had helped establish it.

As Death’s styles shifted, so did its band members. Schuldiner would be the sole constant member and bandleader. Terry Butler and Bill Andrews hung around for the next album, but each Death album after featured a revolving door of musicians, many of whom became revered figures for their Death output as well as other projects. Death would continue until 1998, when Schuldiner ended the band to pursue a different progressive metal style with Control Denied. Schuldiner was diagnosed with brain cancer and died in December of 2001.

In the decades since Schuldiner’s death, his band Death has taken on a god-like status in the ranks of death metal and beyond. Leprosy was a formative offering that helped define the new genre of death metal and get Death notice as a band to watch. Over 20 years after Schuldiner’s passing, Death is still at the forefront of the genre that Schuldiner spearheaded.