LEFT TO DIE

Chuck Schuldiner has been gone since December 2001…almost 25 years ago, a quarter of a century. Yet the founder of DEATH (and one of the fathers of the entire death metal genre) has never had a more visible presence than now. More than one band have dedicated themselves to perpetuating the music of DEATH or playing in the style of DEATH…among them DEATH TO ALL, GRUESOME and the subject of this interview, LEFT TO DIE.

Of all of these DEATH-adjacent bands, none has a truer lineage than LEFT TO DIE. This groups boasts two actual members of DEATH’s earliest incarnation, guitarist Rick Rozz (MASSACRE) and Terry Butler (OBITUARY). Joining them are drummer Gus Rios (GRUESOME) and the death metal renaissance man, Matt Harvey (GRUESOME, EXHUMED, POUNDER) LEFT TO DIE is unique in that it focuses on the very earliest sounds of DEATH, songs that were never released in album form and also originating with the pre-DEATH band, MANTAS.

LEFT TO DIE’s new album (and their debut) is “Initium Mortis”, which digs up the moldering corpse of early DEATH and brings new life to these primitive yet powerful tracks. Chuck himself would surely approve of how faithful they are to the originals. The album even boasts a great cover that pays tribute to “Scream Bloody Gore”.

Wormwood’s own Mercyful Mike recently did a long and penetrating interview with Matt Harvey about the band’s approach to honoring DEATH’s legacy. With some deeply appreciated help from Mr. Brian Balich, here’s that interview

WORMWOOD CHRONICLES: Today we've got the pleasure of having arguably the most busy, most hardest-working man in all of metal. We've got Matt Harvey with us today. Matt, thanks so much for joining us.

MATT HARVEY: Yeah, yeah, thank you for having me. Glad we were able to make it work. You know, tornadoes and football notwithstanding. So we're here and things are things are good.

WC: Yeah, for those of you that are not in the know, we tried this yesterday and unfortunately, I'm south of Milwaukee and tornadoes and severe weather had a whole other story planned for us.Matt was gracious enough to reschedule, so we're giving it a take two today.

MH: Yeah, we got it this time.

WC: Matt, you are busy. You're in EXHUMED, GRUESOME, but we're gonna focus on LEFT TO DIE today. And July 17th is the big day. New album released on Relapse, .”Initium Mortis”. And I got to say that is the absolute perfect name for this. I mean, that translates to the “Beginning of Death”. And this album is focused on the earliest recordings of DEATH, those unreleased tracks and the demos. So give us a little bit of background on how that all came about, because this is an exciting release for a lot of us

MH: I guess the shortest version that I can do. I'm kind of a rambler so…

WC: Okay.

MH: Basically, since we started doing LEFT TO DIE, you know, people kept asking us if we were going to write songs, if we were going to record anything, what we were doing, yadda yadda yadda. And, you know, we never really had any huge master plan or anything. But as time went on, you know, the questions persisted, and also I think we kind of felt like…we had some chemistry, and we felt like a band, you know, not just,me and Gus who played together a lot, and then Terry and Rick would play together a lot. It felt like now it's a thing, you know, it's us playing together. And so we knew that people were interested because they kept fucking asking us. And, you know we talked about writing some songs and given that the band was started to help Terry and Rick do the “Leprosy” stuff and the “Scream Bloody Gore” stuff that was when Rick rejoined, and when Terry joined was on the “Scream Bloody Gore” tour cycle, such as it was.

So the catalog that we'd been playing, you know, is this sort of rarefied, you know, all-killer, no-filler classic death metal stuff And whatever we would write, you know, it wouldn't really make sense for us to write unless we were going to write in that vein. And we realized that we were just going to open ourselves up to just some pretty unpleasant points of comparison, because, when you're talking about 2 of the most beloved albums in the genre when Chuck is no longer with us. So that kind of lengthens the shadow even more of that stuff. You know, we just thought it would be too much pressure, that no matter what we did, even if we worked really hard and, you know, came up with these great songs…

WC: Right. Sure, sure.

MH: It still wouldn't be as good as “Leprosy” and selfishly, I feel like I would be the one opening myself up to, you know, a very tough set of comparisons that I really didn't want to expose myself to. You know, I don't want people to think that I'm trying to be the new Chuck or any of that stuff, because I'm not. There is no new Chuck, there's just Chuck. And anyway, so…

WC: Right.

MH: I was doing a GRUESOME interview at some point for “Silent Echoes”, and a guy asked me, a Belgian dude, I think his name was Steve, I should really sort out his name, because he deserves some of the credit for this. He talked about the “Legion of Doom” cover that GRUESOME had done, because the main riff is the riff and the bridge of “Spiritual Healing”, and we did it when we were doing “Twisted Prayers”, which is like our companion piece to“Spiritual Healing”. And he was like, oh, it's really cool to hear that, you know, and a lot of those songs, nobody's ever really heard them properly recorded. Have you ever thought about doing more of that? And I answered him by saying, no, I have not, and do not print this as part of the interview, because I gotta make, you know, I gotta send some WhatsApp messages after we get off of this call. It was one of those things that just, as soon as the idea presented itself, seemed really fucking obvious, and that's generally my indicator of something that's a good idea.

WC: Sure.

MH: It's just like, why didn't I think of that before? It's right there. So we felt like this way we could record something that people would be stoked about that they'd want to hear, but we wouldn't be inviting ourselves the kinds of comparisons like, oh, it doesn't live up to “Leprosy”, because nothing's gonna live up to “Leprosy”. And these are all songs that Rick was there for the writing of or co-writing or whatever,.I mean, who knows, it was just so long ago, I doubt even he remembers who came up with what riff or whatever. But you know that's all stuff that you know, he is very legitimately a band member for, so him playing these songs on the band that he's in doing these songs felt credible, and it also was stuff that hadn't been properly recorded, so it seemed like it would fulfill a need rather than just being, like, a  thing, you know, because people kept asking us, so we did it. So that's kind of how we arrived at this point.

WC: Gotcha, gotcha. That sounds perfect. You know, with the recording of it, and I'm asking this from my point of view, a little bit more on the fan side and the tape trading side, those early Mantas demos and all that, when we were made available to that, you know, these were like fourth, fifth generation cassettes and sounded like crap. So as you guys went into re-record and do your versions of these songs,did you guys have, like, the best possible tapes available so you could pick out more of what the rest of us heard, like, you know, really bad dubs.

MH: No, no, we didn't. I still had, you know, I still had all the cassettes that I'd gotten in the mid 90s, which were 10th generation or whatever by that point. And all the stuff that I had, you know, downloaded kind of in the early 2000s. When that's what you did is, you just found stuff you're looking for and downloaded it. And especially seeing as how it was stuff that was never properly released and Chuck was deceased, that definitely felt like a victimless crime, you know, to be downloading these old rips of these rehearsal tapes and stuff.

WC: Yeah.

MH: So I just went back to those because I think, A, I don't even have a cassette deck anymore. And I listen to vinyl, and occasionally CDs, and then, you know, streaming. So I just went back to the stuff I downloaded and obviously the MANTAS released by Relapse, which I assume they got from the best quality source. And it's still, you know…

WC: Best quality is a very relative term.

MH: Yep.

WC: Well, when you figure that a lot of those came from, you know, literally recording off of boom boxes, so the sonic quality was sketchy to begin with, let alone dubbing generation after generation.

MH: Yeah, I mean, it really  was a bit of kind of musical archaeology, you know, and the great thing is that almost all the songs have been recorded and released on various tapes, like many times. So there was sort of multiple iterations to go by, and it would kind of be like you could hear one riff better on this rehearsal, and then you could hear the next riff better on the live show with NASTY SAVAGE from 84, whatever. I kind of just mixed and matched where I could, and then I would sort of share my work with Rick and be like, is this right? And half the time he's like, yeah, I don't know. And then occasionally he'd be like, actually, it's like this and then I was like, really? And then I'd go back and listen, I'll be damned!

WC: It is.

MH: You know, but it was just a fun process to dig through, and I think, you know, with recordings where the source material is so crude…

WC: Sure, sure.

MH: You know, it's really… the increasing quality would be so incremental, it would be kind of incidental, you know? That, to me, is part of the experience, is straining to make out what's going on and you know, just hearing the grime and the sweat. It's pretty good!

WC: So that must have been a fun experience picking Rick's brain and trying to go back into that headspace that long ago. I can just imagine it was like an epiphany for him a couple of times, like, oh yeah, I do remember that, you know?

MH: Yeah, there was a couple songs he was like, “Rise of Satan”,what the fuck? And I was like, yeah, oh, oh yeah okay there it was so  it was really fun and it's stuff that is all very near and dear to my heart when a band,one of my absolute favorite bands, I am hearing everything they did. Hearing the rehearsals and what riffs got reused for what songs, and what parts got scrapped, and all those sorts of things, you know? So… it was all material that I was familiar with, already, and I had  a lot of various bootlegs of it, so it was a good excuse to sort of dig that stuff out and comb through it.

WC: Oh, we're glad you did because the promo that was sent to us, you know, it's like hearing them for the very first time again because we've never heard them sound so damn good and they sound so damn good, Matt. And it's a pleasure to hear them and it just opens it up to, like, this is… this is what it was. I think you absolutely did everything justice, “Witch of Hell” sounds just fucking great. Everything about it sounds fantastic, but I want to just back up a little bit to where you, you know, we all hold those early DEATH albums near and dear, but I wanted to ask you about getting into heavy music, was there one particular album, no matter what band it was, was there one particular heavy album that was, like, a big eye-opener for you, where you thought, okay, this is the direction I'm going?

MH: Well, I mean, there's a few sort of key moments. The first and probably most significant was at some point in 87, I got the old, 10 tapes for a penny record club thing…

WC:That we're all still paying for!

MH: Luckily, my granddad found out that I hadn't paid him, and I was scared that they were gonna, like, take me to court, and he's like, dude, you're 12, you can't enter into a contract. So he wrote him, like, hey, my grandson signed up for this. He can't do it because he's not 18, and I'm like, oh, okay, whatever, keep the tapes. But…

WC: Wow, that's awesome.

MH:...In that batch of tapes was “Master Of Puppets”, and I listened to that. There was QUIET RIOT and IRON MAIDEN and W.A.S.P. and the WHITESNAKE self titled album, which was, you know, a hot new release at the time. I think,the OZZY Randy Tribute was in there, and things like that And I knew the METALLICA tape was supposed to be, like, real crazy, so I sort of waited, you know, that was, like, the 11th tape that I listened to. The 12th one being “Peace Sells, But Who's Buying?” And when I put it on, and I just heard that tempo and how percussive and how tight and aggressive the guitars were…Wow!

You know, at first I put it on, I heard the intro for “Battery”, and I was like, is this the right tape? I thought this was the craziest metal band out there. So I thought it was, like, Spanish music or whatever, because it does have that kind of spaghetti western feel…

WC: This isn't heavy.

MH: And then it kicked in and I was just like, what the fuck did I just hear? And, you know, I think I just listened to that cassette…I spent probably just a few days just listening to that only, just trying to absorb it and really kind of wrap my head around what I was hearing. And up to that point, I'm still a big comic book reader and fan and that was sort of my dream. I'm 11, but I went from thinking I was going to be a comic book artist to thinking I was going to be a guitar player that yelled at people. And so here I am as a guitar player that yelled at people. I mean,  that was the biggest sort of eureka moment but there's a few others like “Morbid Tales” by CELTIC FROST was another one where I was like, I can't believe that you can make music that's this heavy. And then the PL sessions from NAPALM DEATH was like, I can't believe that…

WC: You can make music that's this fast, you know?

MH: Yeah, it's like another step and another level like, holy cow. Yeah, I know what you mean. So those were kind of… those are kind of the big three and you know DEATH is in there, but it was a little bit more gradual, I guess, with DEATH because the first time I heard “Scream Bloody Gore” didn't quite know what to make of it. I was like you know, it's kind of like KREATOR, but I can't really understand what the guy's saying. And is it thrash? Is it not? Like, I didn't know what death metal was just yet. This would have been 88 when I was 12. So it took a little while for me to wrap my head around, whereas those other 3 was just sort of like instant, like a light bulb goes on, like, what the , you know?

WC: Yep.

MH: So yeah,it's funny you mention that too, because I had not heard DEATH. The first time I heard DEATH was actually live because they played they played the very first Milwaukee Metal Fest in 87.

WC: Sure.

MH: And again, like you were saying, like, death metal hadn't really unfolded itself, hadn't really fully revealed what death metal was at that point, and we were there specifically for KING DIAMOND ,TROUBLE, NUCLEAR ASSAULT, but when DEATH came on, I remember my friends and I, we all, like, just absolutely stopped, because we were like, what is this? And we were just… you know, it is, it's one of those moments, those core memories where you're like, I remember where I was, what the room smelled like, what they were playing, and we were like, holy , and from then on, I mean, the next day, we couldn't get enough of it, ran down to the record store and got “Scream Bloody Gore”.

WC: Yep.

MH: We're off and running, like you were saying, too, it's like you always search for that next level. You know, you kind of chase that high a little bit. It's like, what's the next heaviest thing? And, man, that was it for us. lifelong DEATH fans right after that.So that was a crazy show.

WC: Yeah.

MH: Eric Greif is from the Milwaukee area. He worked with NUMSKULL and all those Midwestern bands, you know,...MORBID SAINT. WRATH is from Milwaukee, right? The old 80s band…They're more… they're south. There's a couple guys that were from Kenosha, but more Chicago. They're more of a Chicago band. Super guys, though. Excellent guys.

WC: Yeah, yeah.

MH:  A lot of the bands from the Midwest back in the day, they just got short shrift because I think, at that time, the media centers were so concentrated in LA and New York and people became fascinated with the San Francisco scene…because it was close enough to LA, and it was like seen as like the flip side of the hair metal thing, you know, and if you were even in Chicago, which is a huge metropolitan area,like, you just weren't getting the coverage that you would get if you were, you know, from LA, from San Francisco, or from New York back in the day so there's a lot of bands really flew under the radar.

WC: Sure.

MH: Yeah, there was a lot of focus on either coast, but I mean, we really have to thank Jack Koshick, a huge promoter up this way. He was the founder of Metal Fest, but he brought so many bands into the area that the rest of us didn’t know unless we were relying on magazines and the liner notes of tapes, we wouldn't have gotten to see or even heard of. And, you know, that first Metal Fest, that was just huge for all of us at that young age.

WC:I can imagine, yeah, I can imagine.

WC: Yeah. I gotta ask you, in the live setting, when you're playing, do you ever kind of, like, catch yourself looking around the stage and see Rick and Terry and be like, holy cow, man, we're up here doing it

MH: Yeah, there are definitely those moments where you kind of …you're playing the songs, so you're trying to stay in tune and stay on time remember what the next riff is, or whatever. But there's a few moments where I get to just sort of be like, yeah, it's pretty badass, you know? Like, the one that I really love is before the the choruses in “Choke On It” because Rick does these little cool like lead fills and the backing riff is so dead easy. You know, I'd have to be really drunk to not be able to play it right so I don't have to think about what I’m doing and I can just be like dude,listen to that. Yeah, it sounds like it's throwing a fucking cat in a blender because, I mean, that's what we used to call it back when I was a kid. It would be “Oh, this Chuck guy is, like, you know, trying to be really melodic, and then this Rick Rozz person just sounds like you're throwing a cat in the fucking blender! Just… it was great. So yeah, you get to sort of, you know you get the best of both worlds, but you got to just sort of make sure that you're able to switch back or else you might, oh shit, I was supposed to be singing, I was supposed to be doing something, you know?

WC: Little too lost in the moment.

MH: Yeah, but I mean, like, I really do have a great time playing the songs and you know I try to come at it from like I am a fan, and I'm having a blast playing some of my favorite songs with  guys who are, like, my heroes growing up, and it would be a real missed opportunity to not just have as much fucking fun with that as I can, you know.

WC: Absolutely.

MH: As much as this legacy and this sort of specter of these classic albums kind of looming over me and these unfillable shoes that I'm trying to stand in. You know, at the end of the day, it's like if I start thinking about all that stuff, then it gets really intimidating, whereas if I'm just playing the riffs that I was learning when I was, 14, 15, or whatever.

WC: Right.

MH: You know, then that's fun because, I mean, we used to play… I mean, when I was in 8th grade, before we even had  a drummer or anything, we used to play “Sacrificial”, it was one of the first songs that we went through and we played “Mutilation” in the 90s. Zoom never recorded it, but Cole and I were planning on recording it or something, and we never did. Ultimately, you know, I'm just kind of playing songs that I have fun playing and and if I focus on that, usually the gig goes good. If I think about living up to the expectation of Chuck's legacy, then I'm going to start, overthinking it.

WC: I would also say, though from people I talk to and people who are really digging what LEFT TO DIE is doing, I don't think there's really anybody that I've heard with any kind of negative feedback for that because I think what you guys are doing Is, you know, honoring the legacy and you're doing it perfectly. So, people are going to have opinions, whatever …you know what they say about that, but like you said, I would enjoy it as having as much fun as you can. I wouldn't worry about anybody who's got something negative to say, because I think they're pretty few and far between. At least from what I've heard.

MH: And I think even the people that are skeptical about what we're doing, I think they're coming to their skepticism from a good place, which is that they care about the legacy of death and they feel protective of it, especially because the person that created that legacy is here to protect it himself. So, even if people are like, oh, those are the cash google shitty cover band, whatever, you know, because I read YouTube comments, I'm curious, I'm interested in what people think. But even though the stuff that is negative, it's like, well, yeah, people want to protect the legacy of their favorite band, which is awesome that people care enough, you know, to give a shit about that. 

WC: Good point, yeah.

WC: Sure, sure.I've got a question for you. I'm going to kind of dip into GRUESOME a little bit because you've stated too that GRUESOME albums tend to be companion pieces to some of the DEATH catalog. With that in mind, has CONTROL DENIED ever come into the equation? Have you ever thought about kind of dipping your toes into that end of the pool?

MH: Not really. One, because that's something that's very far outside my vocal capability. I mean, I'm an okay singer in terms of singing on pitch, but I'm not like that. I'm not that kind of singer

WC: Right, okay.

MH: So that would be something that the four of us who have been doing this the whole time would not really be able to do by ourselves. And also ,even to me,  we talked about the sort of whole journey through the catalog and  even “Perseverance” to me,was intended to be a CONTROL DENIED album and when I hear that record, that's what I hear, you know, it's a CONTROL DENIED album that Chuck ended up singing on. So I think that that's sort of outside of the scope of the project. When we started GRUESOME, there was no grand design. There was no plan aside from, oh, we'll make a record and maybe people will like it. You know, in my mind, it was like a like a novelty thing,. I remember, you know, telling my wife at the time, she's like, oh, another fucking band, another project. Okay, like, whatever, like, where are you gonna find time for all this? And I was like, this… oh, this is… this won't go anywhere, like, come on, like, I doubt we'll ever play a show.

WC:: Famous last words.

MH: I was wrong. And you know, it wasn't that we didn't take it seriously and try to make a good record. You know that part we took very seriously. But in terms of live work, I really didn't think that the band could do anything. Gus sort of saw the potential there, but that completely escaped me.

WC: Well, I'll tell you what, Matt, before we wrap up, we kind of like to have some fun with our guests and put them on the spot a little bit here and there. Okay, well, hopefully this is fun. So what I'm going to do…I've got a bunch of bands here, and I'm going to give you the debut album, and then the sophomore album, and you have to tell me which one is your favorite of those two. Expand on it as much or as little as you want. And this is your opinion. We're going to put it in print and shame you all over the internet later. So make sure you answer them right. Only right answers. Only 100% correct non-subjective answers.Alright, first band, MORBID ANGEL, “Altars of Madness”, or “Blessed Are the Sick”.

MH: I mean, I think “Altars” is certainly the better record. “Blessed”, I kind of enjoy because they re-recorded some of the earlier tracks that I like a lot like “Thy Kingdom Come”, which is probably my favorite MORBID ANGEL song…

WC: It's killer!

MH: But overall, you know, “Altars”, although I've never shared the opinion that “Altars of Madness” is somehow the ultimate death metal album or ever was, it's good. It's a killer record. I love it, but it's I don’t think it’s the best.

WC:Yeah, some people put that album like way up on a pedestal and I'm with you. Great album, but best? It's in the conversation, I suppose, but all right ,next band…

MH: Okay, go ahead.

WC: Next band is CANNIBAL CORPSE. “Eaten Back To Life” or “Butchered At Birth”

MH: I highly prefer “Eaten Back To Life”. I feel like “Butchered” is kind of like a growing pains album to get to “Tomb of the Mutilated”. There's also something about the guitar tone on “Butchered at Birth” that is annoying. Like it's harsh in a way that I don't find pleasing.But some great songs, you know.“Gutted" was a good track. “Meat Hook Sodomy” was a good track But I love the first one because it's almost almost like the only record by that band. Like, “Tomb” is where they become sort of capital C, capital C, CANNIBAL CORPSE. And “Eaten Back to Life”, you can tell, like, these are like thrash crossover kids that don’t have much plan or forethought, and it's it's very reckless, and it's super fun, you know, it's...

WC: They are discovering death metal and just going full hog without really knowing exactly what it is.

MH: It's still my favorite CANNIBAL record overall, although they have a lot of great ones in the catalog, but yeah, definitely “Eaten”...

WC:Yeah.It is. Okay, I agree with you too. “Butchered At Birth”, I don't know if this is the right way to describe it, but like you said about the tone, it's got… it's tinny. It's very tinny to me for some reason. Very shallow, so… Okay, moving along to SUFFOCATION. “Effigy of the Forgotten”, or “Pierced From Within”.

MH: Oh, you're skipping right over the one that everybody doesn't like, “Breeding the Spawn”. I mean, to me, I like “Human Waste” even better, but definitely the first one…

WC: Oh, I did, I did. Well, okay, we'll throw that in the mix too. Go ahead. We'll make it three.

MH:I think “Breeding The Spawn” just sounds like shit, so it's just kind of difficult to listen to. And I like a lot of shitty recordings, but when you have “Human Waste”, which is raw, “Effigy…”, which sounds great, and then to like step backwards is kind of tough to take.

WC: Sure

MH: Especially on your second album. And “Pierced from Within” is just too technical for my personal taste. I find I just start tuning out because it's so busy. And  also It feels a little bit less muscular and kind of athletic. Like, I like busy music if it feelsathletic, but once it gets into being meticulous and fussy, like really technical stuff to me sounds kind of fussy, which I don't enjoy. I do love the EP, the “Despise the Sun” EP that came after “Pierced From Within” we, that was kick-ass. But yeah, “Effigy…” for sure.

WC:Fair enough. IMMOLATION:  “Dawn of Possession” or “Here In After”?

MH: Oh, boy, I'm nothing if not consistent. I think!.I feel like “Dawn…” is really perfect because it feels like a culmination of these songs that they've been recording and re-recording and reaching their final form. And I think having the having Harris Johns produced the record was really, really smart because it didn't fall under the trap of yet another Scott Burns kind of production, which by 90, or I guess 91  was already starting to feel a bit tired and kind of generic…

WC: I believe so, yep.

MH: I think it let them stay really unique and because Smilowski is, he's the drummer, right? Craig Smilowski is the drummer on the first one. He only plays on the first one, right? I think he might have done “Here and After”, too.I really like his drumming. There's a sort of like head down kind of like narrow caveman-ish sort of single-mindedness to the performance that would not have served the later material well, but I really enjoy it on the first record .You know, the second record maybe has even more extreme tempos or whatever, but it didn't have, you know that sort of, I don't know, professional shine to it. Like Craig Smilowowski plays like the best guy at your high school. He doesn't really play like a professional drummer. And I mean that as a compliment, you know, because to me, I was like, I recognized his drumming, and then the next album was more like good drumming, which sort of becomes more of a type than a specific person. You know, I think they're one of the few bands that I would say I think they don't have a bad album in their in their catalog, and you can't really go wrong with them. They've evolved in their own little sound and  in some ways the first album might actually be the material might be more generic. It might be more…

WC: Right.They are extremely consistent.

MH: …Just old school death metal and less IMMOLATION, which in that case, I find sort of pleasing because it still has enough of the weird sort of haunting, bendy elastic band kind of, It's  with way more like hefts and sort of balls to it, I found. So yeah, I love “Dawn…” as like a perfect record, you know, 10 out of 10.

WC: Awesome. Alright, and the last one, you probably saw this one coming, but DEATH, “Scream Bloody Gore” or “Leprosy”?

MH: Well, I will say “Leprosy” is the better album.

WC: “Leprosy” is certainly the better album. And I honestly think that.

MH: “Leprosy” is sort of what people call “old school death metal”. I wouldn't call it that. I would refer to it as the classic era of death metal because I think old school death metal starts with MANTAS and HELLHAMMER and the POSSESSED tapes and stuff. (Does anybody alive give MASTER any fuckin’ credit at all?!--Dr. M)

WC: Yep.

MH:: And that  covers, like, INSANITY and SLAUGHTER and the early SEPULTURA, blah blah blah. But “Leprosy” starts the classic period, because POSSESSED breaks up while “Scream Bloody Gore” is coming out or right around the same time. So there's this sort of power vacuum, because all the other more brutal bands, like DARK ANGEL, SACRIFICE, SODOM, KREATOR, were all sort of getting more accessible and more refined and becoming, like, technical…

WC: Right. Yeah.

MH: You know, the early stuff… is it death metal? Is it thrash? I don't know, but by the time 87, 88 rolls around, it's definitely thrash, like “Leave Scars” and “Persecution Mania" and all these kinds of records. So “Leprosy” hits at the exact right time, and not only does it come out at the time when the market is ready for it, because everyone had heard “Reign In Blood” already. Even the guy, just the Hesher in the suburbs, had gotten “Reign In Blood” at the mall. So people were ready to hear something, you know, heavier. that in, you know, had this come out in 86, it would have gone over people's heads. And they're in there at Morrisound. They've got the trigger drums that, you know, became synonymous with death metal. They've got this polished Morrisound production, and you got Chuck sort of reaching for these melodic ideas that were already beyond what KREATOR or SOSODM, or more successful bands, more established bands, were doing. Like, he was playing cool leads. SLAYER didn't have cool leads, KREATOR didn't have cool leads.To my ears, anyway, like, he was playing stuff that was actually tuneful and had a melodic sensibility to it. So, “Leprosy” is certainly the better album, but I probably get more enjoyment out of “Scream Bloody Gore”.As I get better, or as I improved over the years at playing guitar when you hear something that's well done, you're sort of like, yeah, okay, cool, I could do that, you know, great. But when you hear something that is maybe less well done, but has a specific energy to it, that's the kind of stuff that I feel like you can't reproduce because the blueprint that “Leprosy” laid out became the Scott Burns blueprint with a certain kinds of kick drum sound that was all over everybody's records. You know, the certain kind of amps, even the BC Rich guitars became like part of the fucking blueprint.

WC: Right, right.

MH: Well, if you're a death metal band, you need an Ironbird, you need a mock, this is what you need, this is what you do. Go to Morrisound, you trigger your drums, blah blah blah. Even if you were a thrash band, you know, like MALEVOLENT CREATION is basically a thrash band, but now we're going to record at Morrisound, and now it's a death metal band because we're doing all the things that death metal bands do. We're tuning to D, we're using these kinds of guitars, we're using these kinds of kick drums. Whereas “Scream Bloody Gore” is just clearly just some fucking idiots bashing out stuff. 

WC: Now we're death, yeah.

MH: I asked Chris Reifert about “Scream Bloody Gore” and I was like, do you have any memories or anecdotes? Chris, he's a bit of a burnout. He's like, I don't know, man, I was 17, smoked a lot of weed. I was in a warehouse. And that was it. I was like, wow, okay, didn't learn anything.

WC: Thanks for elaborating.

MH: I was like, okay, I got nothing out of that, it's perfect, you know? Because that's what it is, you know? It's a culmination of all those iterations of “Evil Dead”, “Infernal Death” and “Mutilation”. The versions they've done on all these tapes, and now they're just still kind of executing it the same way, but just on a bigger stage. So I love that sort of initial burst of ill-advised energy, whereas “Leprosy” has already started to change.You know, you can hear the refinement beginning.

WC:Absolutely, absolutely. All right, fair enough. And it was a great, great way to wrap it up. Thanks for playing along. All right, Matt Harvey, LEFT TO DIE.

MH: Thank you. You're very kind.

WC: “Initium Mortis” coming out July 17th on Relapse. It sounds amazing. You guys knocked it out of the park. I think you're gonna enjoy the ride on this. I think the reception to this is gonna be overwhelmingly positive. 

LEFT TO DIE