Death - Vivus!   

Death comes back to life 

Nine years after founding member and death metal pioneer Chuck Schuldiner died of brain cancer, the heavy metal community learnt that Death’s final studio album, The Sound of Perseverance (1998), would be the first of their releases to be re-mastered and re-issued through Relapse Records. Fans weren’t kept waiting long as the album’s re-issue was made available two months later in February 2011 and the re-issue of Human (1991) and Individual Thought Patterns (1993) following it later that same year in June and October respectively. Just over one year after the first re-issue, avid Death followers now get the chance to add Vivus! to their collection. Vivus! incorporates the rerelease of two concert CDs into one double-CD package. Live in L.A. (Death & Raw) and Live in Eindhoven were both recorded live in 1998 and released in 2001 through Nuclear Blast. The two recordings ultimately captured what was Death’s final line-up of Chuck Schuldiner (vocals, guitar), Shannon Hamm (guitar), Scott Clendenin (bass) and Richard Christy (drums) at the pinnacle of their career.

The first disc revisits the Live in L.A. (Death & Raw) concert that was held at the famous Whisky a Go Go nightclub in West Hollywood in December 1998. The quality of the sound on both original releases is not the greatest so there was little to be improved on with Vivus! However, with both live performances now rereleased together in the same pack, you will immediately hear how the smaller confines of the Whisky renders the first CD a better recording than the second – the rerelease of Death’s performance at the Dynamo Open Air festival in Eindhoven in May 1998. Despite the quality of audio, the two live performances on Vivus! remain testament to the immensely gifted Chuck Schuldiner and to the memory of his brother Frank whose death at age 16 manifested into the band that ultimately defined the death metal we know today.

The Live in L.A. concert on the first disc came six months after that of the Eindhoven performance and it showcases Death at their most supreme. Their thirteen-song set list clocked in at about seventy minutes and is delivered with an immense sense of severity. The confines of the Whisky provided a cosy space for Death to dig in and fill the space to the brim with razor-sharp guitars, splitting drums, thick bass and of course Chuck’s archetypal screams and growls. Apart from the shattering profundity that Death delivers each song with, it is also Chuck’s very personable performance that stands out. He does an amazing job at inviting the crowd into the experience and significance of the music. Disc two’s Live in Eindhoven runs in at just less than an hour and as noticeable as the flatter sound is, it takes nothing away from the way Death scorches through a set list of 11 songs in such relentless fashion. It is a ferocious performance and it’s rather harried delivery is easily forgiven – it remains a benchmark for merciless live death metal.

On both occasions, Death decided to open with ‘The Philosopher’ and close with ‘Pull the Plug’ but, Live in Eindhoven’s more urgent performance leaves out ‘Scavenger of Human Sorrow’ and ‘Empty Words’ and instead includes ‘Lack of Comprehension’ and ‘Flattening of Emotions’. Live in L.A. is the better recording but, Vivus! aptly captures the memory of two magnificent shows in which Chuck Schuldiner and Death live on forever.

(Relapse Records/Riot! Entertainment)

Added: April 11th 2012
Reviewer: Simon Crawley
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