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This is it, the ur-Death Metal album. The primal. Modern Death Metal was born out of three albums: Possessed with Seven Churches, Slayer with Reign In Blood, and the inevitable Death with this, the marvelously titled debut of the seminal Death Metal band. Chuck Schuldiner (RIP) had been gigging around first as Mantas, and then as Death, for several years by the time Combat stepped to the plate and got this fucker released.

Way before Death became known for their technicality, they were a bashing, thrashing, evil band who were so extreme for the time they helped define a new genre. And yet even at this early date, Chuck was a solid riff-writer, in fact I think his early riffs are often more compelling than his later stuff. The songwriting here is obviously more direct, and the go-for-the-throat aggression is markedly different from their more cerebral approach later on. This is quite similar to Possessed, in the Thrash-style songwriting and vocal approach, but Chuck splices in a more traditional riff style, and so this stuff is compulsively hooky. Great stuff like "Zombie Ritual", "Regurgitated Guts", and the classic title track make this an album that never sounds dated or old-fashioned.

Scream Bloody Gore sounds as fresh and extreme today as it did twenty years ago, and that's the real definition of a classic. This isn't the best Death Metal album of all time, but it remains a landmark release, and pretty much every Death Metal band today takes something from it. An essential album.