Where it all begins. Scream Bloody Gore is Death’s 1987 debut and, for many, the first true death metal album: raw, fast and unrelentingly heavy, essentially the work of two young musicians who helped invent a genre.

The short version

The debut studio album by Death, released in May 1987 on Combat Records; twelve tracks composed entirely by Chuck Schuldiner and recorded, in its released form, at The Music Grinder in Los Angeles with producer Randy Burns. It was made as a two-man effort, Schuldiner handling vocals, guitar and bass and Chris Reifert on drums, and it is widely regarded as one of the first true death metal records and a cornerstone of the entire genre. It comes from well before the band’s progressive turn, which arrived years later on Human.

Where death metal begins

Death had taken shape in Florida in the early 1980s and spent years building a following through demos before recording their debut, with Schuldiner as the constant driving force. The album was actually tracked twice: after the label was unhappy with an initial session, Schuldiner and Reifert re-recorded it in Los Angeles with producer Randy Burns, and it was that version Combat released, while the earlier session later surfaced as a bootleg. Much of the material was drawn from the band’s demo years and reworked for the record. It remained the only Death album to feature Reifert, who soon after founded the influential Autopsy; guitarist John Hand was credited on the sleeve but did not actually play, and Ed Repka supplied the cover art.

The sound

Raw, primitive and ferociously fast: buzzsaw riffing, Schuldiner’s growled and screamed vocals, and Reifert’s rapid, pummelling drums, all captured in the sound of a genre being defined in real time. There is little of the melody or intricacy the band would develop later; this is a cruder, more visceral Death, closer to the era’s thrash than to anything progressive, but with a phrasing and songwriting voice already recognisably Schuldiner’s own. The lyrics inhabit a world of horror and zombie cinema, with several songs drawing directly on the films of the Italian director Lucio Fulci. It is the primal source, unpolished but genuinely groundbreaking.

Reading up on American prog? The books go deeper →

The songs

The album opens with Infernal Death and never really lets up across its twelve tracks. Its clearest signpost to the future is Zombie Ritual, whose memorable opening pairs melodic leads with brutal riffing in a way that hints at where the band would go next. Elsewhere, Evil Dead takes its title and theme from the horror film, and Mutilation and Baptized in Blood are among the best-known cuts, alongside the title track itself. It is short, consistent and relentless, a set of lean, fast songs built for maximum impact rather than nuance.

Reception and legacy

Scream Bloody Gore is regarded almost unanimously as one of the cornerstones of death metal, frequently named among the very first true records in the style and credited, alongside a small handful of contemporaries, with helping to create the genre outright. It established Schuldiner as a singular voice and songwriter and set the template that a whole scene would build on. Endlessly reissued and celebrated, it anchors the band’s foundational era together with the following year’s Leprosy, before the increasingly ambitious albums that would carry Death somewhere very different.

The verdict

Not a progressive album at all, but the origin point of both the band and, arguably, the genre itself: raw, fast, historically essential death metal. If you have come to Death for the technical, progressive music they later became known for, start with Human and Individual Thought Patterns; but if you want to hear where it all started, Scream Bloody Gore is ground zero, and it still sounds like a genuine year-one document.

Browse the bookshelf in the footer →