Death – Death By Metal (1984)

April 12, 2024

I’m no scholar on the work of Chuck and Death / Mantis, but this noisy rehearsal demo featuring the now legendary line up of Chuck, Rick Rozz and Kam Lee, is nothing but an absolute pleasure to listen to. It is perhaps easy to put this up on a pedestal due to its historical significance, but it is, at the end of the day, a noisy thrash-becoming-death metal demo made by a bunch of very talented kids. Beneath the haze of the production you can hear the incredible riffs and strong song structures. If I had to compare to other / later bands, parts of this gives me Autopsy vibes whilst other bits are more in the school of Kreator. Good shit.