Death - Spiritual Healing
Relativity Records Inc.
Death Metal
10 songs (43'21)
Release year: 1990
Death
Reviewed by Jack
Archive review
It’s quite hard to come up with something original to say about Chuck Schuldiner since he past away on December 13, 2001. But since Spiritual Healing is among, if not my personal death metal fave albums of all time, here is what I have to say about it.

The year is early 1990 and death metal is only at its infancy. Death has already released two albums, Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy, almighty Morbid Angel has just released their first album Altar Of Madness, Obituary has stunned the world with their first release, Slowly We Rot, Sepultura has just taken everybody by surprise with Beneath The Remains and Cannibal Corpse has not yet released their first album Eaten Back To Life. But Death, the band of evil Chuck Schuldiner, a pioneering force in death metal as the vocalist and guitarist for the band that has given birth to death metal, is about to release the album of a lifetime. Spiritual Healing is a monumental death metal album. Never has a band released such a greater album. Never has death metal reached such a peak before. Spiritual Healing has changed the way this musical style would be comprehended.

The eight tracks are carried by heavy, mid-tempo melodies and technical razor-sharp riffing, with sudden tempo-changes interrupted by incredible solos. Precisely, one of the most interesting things on this album are the great solo battles between Chuck and James Murphy, especially on Low Life where Chuck and James fire six ripping guitar solos one after one. The most noted improvement from Leprosy is in the singing of Chuck Schuldiner, who is no longer belting out indecipherable lines, but is now pronouncing words clearly, and without losing any of his trademark brutality. Spiritual Healing is an album more technical and more diverse in structure than it’s predecessor Leprosy, and a fine example of introducing melody in a death metal context.

I don’t think Chuck Schuldiner has ever surpassed himself with any of the follow-ups, although production had gotten better for his next albums Human, Individual Thought Patterns, Symbolic and The Sound Of Perseverance. The second and last time I saw Death live was in late 1998 or early 1999 just after the release of The Sound Of Perseverance. I just hated Chuck for not playing a single song from Spiritual Healing. Alas, I didn’t know what was going to happen….

Farewell my friend, I had the chance to meet you in 1992 and tell you how much Spiritual Healing counted in my metal life. A small step for a man, a giant leap for a genre.

Killing Songs :
it's a 100 / 100... so they're all killing ones
Jack quoted 100 / 100
Other albums by Death that we have reviewed:
Death - Symbolic reviewed by Thomas and quoted CLASSIC
Death - Scream Bloody Gore reviewed by Crims and quoted 82 / 100
Death - Individual Thought Patterns reviewed by Aleksie and quoted 95 / 100
Death - Live In Eindhoven '98 (DVD) reviewed by Ger and quoted no quote
Death - Human reviewed by Jeff and quoted CLASSIC
To see all 8 reviews click here
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