★★★★☆
There’s nothing like a bumper reissue to get the cynicism senses tingling, right?
After all, few things smack more of ‘cash grab’ than the decision to re-release an album that’s barely turned 30. Death’s Scream Bloody Gore isn’t even at mid-life crisis age yet – does it really deserve a two-disc deluxe edition?
The answer, surprisingly, is yes. Time has been very kind to a record that has been routinely described by those in the know as the birthing ground for the entire death metal genre. And yet it’d be wrong to pigeonhole Scream Bloody Gore as a metal record. It’s a lumbering, lopsided behemoth; a drunken Cthulhu tripping over its own tentacles in a surprisingly gratifying way.
Songs stop and start ad nauseum, and tracks like the singularly inspired ‘Sacrifical’ and ‘Evil Dead’ owe as much to punk rock and jazz as they do to more conventional genres. Better still, the bumper second disc is less an assemblage of out-takes and more an all-important glimpse into the demonic forces that brought this screaming mess into the world. It’s a peek around a bloodied curtain – one as illuminating as it is disturbing.
Scream Bloody Gore is filthy, fitful and ferocious. In the words of Anton LaVey, the famous demonic occultist – “Satan approves.”
Death’sScream Bloody Goreis available now on Relapse.
