Human is the fourth album by the band Death. For me, it’s not as interesting as it’s predecessor Spiritual Healing. Human is a little more straight-forward and lacks a bit of the multifaceted rhythms and time signatures. I feel like it’s a step backward in many ways. Even more so the first time I listened to it. The second and third time around I started hearing a lot more nuances, but it’s definitely a little more monotone in my ears.
There’s a wall of sound and there’s a lot of drums and bass on the album. it can have that effect, to sound the same if the rhythms or tempos doesn’t shift enough. I like it when there’s multiple shifts in a song and I don’t really feel it here. There are notable riffs of course. All songs are written by Chuck Shuldiner, which was to Death what Lemmy was to Motörhead. He more or less is the band. At least from this album forward since there was circumstances leading to Chuck getting rid of the old members and hired other musicians instead.
Maybe that’s why there’s another feel to Human compared to the albums before this one. It really shouldn’t be since it’s Chuck’s songs and vision anyway, but I guess every musician has their own playing style anyway. And maybe there’s a bit frustration over needing to hire other musicians for this album too. The songs are shorter and less complex and Human also has the shortest playing time of the first four albums.
