Cause of Death

Obituary’s second album stands astride the annals of death metal and will stay there-eternally. That’s because very few albums in any genre come close to matching its intensity; Cause of Death alternates (often in the same song) between the sludgiest power chords known to mortal man and breakneck tempos that verge on hardcore punk. All punctuated, of course, by the unearthly, guttural maledictions of vocalist John Tardy (one reviewer described them as “senseless gurgles”). This is the only Obituary album with former Death, Disincarnate, and Testament guitarist James Murphy, who contributes leads that, oddly, at times sound almost classical; it also features a no-holds-barred cover of Celtic Frost’s “Circle of the Tyrants” endorsed by Celtic Frost themselves. Throw in Michael Whelan’s foreboding cover art (originally used in a H.P. Lovecraft anthology, and originally intended for a Sepultura album cover), and there’s a reason why this 1990 release remains such a singular record in a genre where the surfeit of fury can flatten the differences between acts and albums. No, Cause of Death is one of a kind, and, for its first American reissue in nearly 30 years, we’ve remastered it for vinyl and pressed it in gray with black splatter vinyl, complete with insert. A metal must.