Anti - Death

Reasons to be against Death: (Other than being a mainstream Metalhead who also worships terrible bands such as Opeth, In Flames, Megadeth and Pantera!)

Pioneers of fast alternate picking, nothing more!

What's so technical about Mr. Schuldiner and Death? They use diminished riffs, which are pretty much rip offs from goregrind style Death Metal bands, and rarely used the neoclassical thematic style in his melodies that made Death "stand out" among others in their genre.

Many of their fans claim that they are crediting for starting "Technical Death Metal." However, firstly I near no neo-classical solos akin to Necrophagist's, and they are certainly not Jazz influenced. Here's the Technical Death Metal gurus - Atheist - quoting Chuck's idiocy "At the time, he didn't think that jazz should have a place in metal. He even said that jazz shouldn't have a place in metal on many occasions. He would say that we didn't listen to metal at all and that we just listened to jazz. No! That's just false."

Further proof of this suspicion that Mr. Schuldiner thought exactly that is dotted around his music that he composed. Firstly, let's have a look at his chord sequences. Modal harmony like jazz is? Yes, but incorrectly done.

Here's an excerpt from Spiritual Healing:



Chuck tends to avoid chord progressions, and instead sticks to chord sequences. So, in order for a chord sequence to be modal, then it must resolved to a root, (other than tonic.) In the above excerpt, the sequence A5-C#5-G#5-C5 is a sequence borrowed from modal harmony - based around this scale. Instead of starting on the tonic, it starts up a step, making it completely devoid of a key.

Secondly, the way in which Death's riffs are constructed are the opposite of Jazz playing. On his power chords, Death (Chuck in particular) sticks to the most important note of the chord, but then finger-picks higher notes all around it. this is the exact opposite of Jazz, where the looser notes are lower, and the chord forms the structure and foundation!

The bass lines are not particularly jazzy either - no walking bass lines, and no 7ths, 9ths, 11ths or 13ths chords either.

So there we have it - barely any Jazz elements at all. Yes diminished scales, yes improvised, yes maybe some flukey modal harmony but you'll have to make a stronger argument than that to convince me!

Now admittedly, I haven't studied Atheist's music, but in my Proud Not to be A True Metalhead group, I slag off Cynic for having terrible structure! Well that's right, they mix in octaves with all their jazzy playing, but at least they contain more Jazz elements than Death!

For instance, Cynic used unusual chords such as 13th chords (which I think are modal - Mixolydian), staccato and rubato in the rhythm meaning it was smooth flowing yer rhythmically displaced as jazz is. Furthermore, strung together without any strong structure, so it's improvised as a Jazz band would be.

Soft Metal devoid of any key:
C'mon Death isn't that heavy! Just listen to "Voice of the Soul", that melodic double tapping just melts your soul doesn't it! Chuck insists on writing the same poppy structure in his songs, following a consistent pattern of: Introduction, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, outro/cadence. His solos are structured with loads of chromatic runs for ease of play, and the tempo changes around the chorus predictably.

The bass and drumming is just as bad. Drum work is too low in the mix, kick drum sounds like tsk tsk tskk. Why the use of a fretless bass, you may as well use a violin as it's just plain incompetent at playing Metal's BPM rate with succinct intonation. Notice all the half-time feel in the bass tabs, and DiGiorgio's bass just flutters in and out of synchronicity. The bass playing on Human can barely be heard, the bassist should at least highlight the first note of the guitar chord - that's one of his jobs, but he fails miserably. The brutality is barely saved by a dose of cookie monster vocals!

Chuck goes out of the way to avoid ending on the root note, so the scale he is soloing is devoid of a key, or at least simple categorization of a key. Without a key music loses most of its harmonious appeal, and puts it on par with Fall Out Boy in terms of songwriting ability and music theory knowledge. All masterpieces of music are written in a key. Same applies to his chord sequences, what are they actually progression to if they don't finish on the tonic / dominant? Just a load of atonal noise... that's what.

I can only conclude Death fans enjoy their music spoon-fed and easily digestible, and can't handle the abstract structures and complex atmospheres of Black Metal? Or does it complement the clean as a whistle vibrato, by giving a renowned sense of accessibility and soullessness to your average metal fan?

Chuck the Christian


Yep, filthy hypocrite listened to Deicide but made an album called Spiritual Healing. The lyrics are about blaming Christians for killing in the name of religion! What a clever disguise for spreading one of the ten commandments of The bible - thou shall not kill! Read between the lines, it's a Christian song! He may as well have called the album Jesus healing the blind!

On top of this, there is an interview with Chuck's mother, where she says he was spiritual AND got Jewish and Christian heritage from his Mother and Father. I'm pretty sure he was born a Jew.

Chuck the elitist
Chuck was an elitist, here he is indirectly expressing his dislike of mallcore (hip-hop, baggy trousers etc.) What he failed to realize is that many "mallcore" bands (Slipknot, Korn, Pantera, Chimera, Marilyn Manson) donated money to help save him from his brain tumor! Maybe they should have asked support from the True Metalhead elite, after all they are stinking rich!

Chuck the hippie
Filthy hippie! Animal loving (seen in interviews in T-shirts of cats instead of band shirts!), sandal wearing and long hair, anti-everything "Chuck was very anti-anything that used and abused people's rights" - except hallucinogenic and soft drugs of course! "I’ve tripped several times. And my only drugs are alcohol and weed.”

Chuck the musical student
Maybe if he knew theory, then he could have passed on the guitar pick to others! Put nope, his failed legacy was to end in 2001.