The history of Death is the history of one man (Chuck Schuldiner) and his attempt to grapple with age-old issues of mortality, and in particular, death. Death are also heralded as the founders of the aptly named genre, ‘death metal’. The first Death album, ‘Screaming Bloody Murder’ focused on the various aspects of death in songs such as ‘Infernal Death’, ‘Evil Death’, ‘Zombie Ritual’, ‘Denial of Life’, ‘Mutilation’ and ‘Regurgitated Guts’.

In later works, Death continued to explore the theme of death with songs called ‘Born Dead’, ‘Left to Die’, ‘Pull the Plug’, ‘Open Casket’, ‘Choke on it’, ‘Slaughter House’, ‘Killing Spree’, ‘Summoned to Die’, ‘Corpse Grinder’ and ‘Death by Metal’. In 1998, Death reinvented themselves and started to sing not only about the inevitability of death, but also about the morbidity of life. This phase is best remembered for numbers such as ‘Living Monstrosity’, ‘Suicide Machine’, ‘Genetic Reconstruction’ and, everyone’s favourite, ‘Scavenger of Human Sorrow’. Despite fears that this new artistic direction would alienate hardcore fans, Death remained as popular as ever. That is, until the 1990s, when disaster struck: Chuck became a Christian. He also developed a brain tumour, which in 2001, led to his death.

Metalometer!
Absurdly-morbid preoccupation ranking:	1st
Speed at which drummer’s bass peddle operates:	10 bps
Lyric repetition modifier:	+8
Dedication to fulfilling the prophesy of Spinal Tap:	5