Forty years after Floridian death metal phenomenon Death dumped a solid three years worth of formative material for bigger, “better writ” stuff unto legendry we find United States-based tribute band LEFT TO DIE exhuming and feasting upon the cutting room floor, polishing dregs into diamonds on this debut full-length/covers album. ‘Initium Mortis‘ is a meet-your-heroes kind of heavy metal fantasy where longtime fans and former members quickly slugged together a tour some years ago and now this album kicks the can further down the road. Though some purist fans might find this relatively short LP a lil’ dead behind the eyes these faithful recreations of mostly unheard-of songs do a fine job of re-stoking some of the earliest death metal fire set in the states.

If you have been a fan of Death beyond Chuck Shuldiner‘s passing in 2001 you’re likely one of two types of folks: The first considers the stuff on tape as archives that should be left well enough alone. Even the remasters were questionable in value from my point of view, for example. Others consider that work timeless and worthy of being carried as a zombified torch, repackaged whatever the vessel in order to pass it on. If you are of the latter group the continued touring of Death to All (nowadays featuring the band’s post-1991 line-up with several guests) has been the most enduring option, more recently touring per the thirtieth anniversary of ‘Symbolic‘. It might seem like there are a shit-ton of Death tribute bands that’d stacked up beyond Death to All‘s catalyst but you’ll find most any other sanctioned names you could conjure stem from the same general pool of folks.

If we are following a timeline which made an album like ‘Initium Mortis‘ viable it begins circa ~2014 with Exhumed‘s Matt Harvey and drummer Gus Ríos‘ involvement with the DTA tours leading to the now three album deep band Gruesome‘s success as a tribute to Death (by way of their own original material) per the last ~decade. Along the way (2021) they’d started Living Monstrosity with James Murphy and Terry Butler to tour on ‘Spiritual Healing‘ and that’d set precedent for Left to Die to form in 2022 featuring guitarist Rick Rozz and Butler for the sake of touring on the 1983-1988 era (incl. Mantas) of the band. The appeal of this album is less the fact that one founding member is included and moreso that most all of the band’s early songs were left to thousand-layer incepted demo dubs, rehearsals and live recordings sans any official preamble to ‘Scream Bloody Gore‘. Many of these songs have been covered over the years, some were never worthy and several don’t even make the cut here… but at any rate you’re getting a pro-level covers album reaching back to one specific locus of death metal in the United States.

Why them? Why now? Why not? — With ‘Initium Mortis‘ we’re getting covers of the stuff that didn’t make the cut ~40 years ago for ‘Scream Bloody Gore‘ sessions for whatever reason, some where co-written with ex-members others too primitive for the duo’s efforts in 1987, but we aren’t getting an archive of unformed edges and halfway-there songs orbiting Death‘s early years either. Left to Die do a fine job of selecting the most viable Death rarities for ‘Initium Mortis‘ while leaving behind the stuff which either became other songs, only featured once or twice on rough live recordings, or simply didn’t stack up (“Demon Flight”, “Beyond the Unholy Grave”, “Skill To Kill”, “Back From The Dead”.) I’d have kicked in a few of those stinkers to pull the running order up closer to the half hour mark but what we get here gets the job done all the same.

With consideration for the 1983-1985 timeline enforced here there may be a surprising amount of speed metal/metalpunk influence to discover within the Mantas ’til Death era of the band, especially for folks who might not’ve explored their impact prior to 1987. Early Death‘s style was fairly compared with nearby work from Hellhammer and Slaughter over the years but even at this level of clarity they were still a different beast. When viewed from a strictly structural point of view different taste in speed, thrash and heavy metal of the era helped to characterize those early days though it was clear what everyone was listening to back then. The second half of ‘Initium Mortis‘, essentially “Rise of Satan” and beyond, in particular finds its own Slayer and Motörhead-esque trample in reaching for speed and this is something that still reads loudly despite the polish applied to Left to Die‘s versions. Once you’ve sat with new versions of “Mantas” and “Death by Metal” this’ll ring most true and of course far louder than you’d have discerned from the old ‘Death by Metal‘ compilation.

In my own travels over the years I’ve only gathered two “strong” opinions on this material: The first is that the best version of “Archangel” is Atrocity‘s (Germany) version, a bonus track from their second LP. Second I think the way Hallow’s Eve nabbed the main riff from “Legion of Doom” per their best known song “Lethal Tendencies” was a better outcome than any version of the song I’ve heard to date. The rest of these songs are largely resigned to Schuldiner‘s infamously rough early recordings otherwise. The whole ‘Initium Mortis‘ undertaking is sharp just short of gloss and righteously does what any amount of remastering/restoration couldn’t, get these songs on tape with some consistency. This is the main argument for checking it out on my part. I’ve got a few gripes to stink up the room with but overall Left to Die making this album is a cool, potentially just a one-off thing.

The running order here is the only real issue I take with Left to Die‘s whole deal here: I don’t like that the album starts with “Legion of Doom”, a quintessential mid-album stomp amidst many other potential swinging openers. “Zombie” into “Witch of Hell” wouldn’t have been as impressive out the gates as the circa ’85 evolve of “Legion of Doom” b/w “Archangel” but it’d have kicked things off with the right pre-album EP kind of tone. Either way, I get that those are the two songs folks will head in looking for outright beyond “Death by Metal” and the tracklist is altogether ordered to reflect a best-of the demo era aiming for familiarity outright.

The chewed-out diction and reverb of early “Evil Chuck” styled vocals doesn’t always come across in Harvey‘s performances here as they’re occasionally buried beneath the overloud pump of the rhythm section. We get a sort of thrashing/deathgrind value from the mix overall and this accentuates the kinda scooped-but-not guitar tone thrashing all over the place, hitting like ‘Beat the Bastards‘ (re: “Power of Darkness”) more than it does a precursor to ‘Scream Bloody Gore‘ by the time “Death by Metal” tracks. On a stereo this sounds fine enough but on headphones it kinda felt like they were pushing for parity with more recent ‘Leprosy‘ remasters as their standard. It all sounds fine enough but unfortunately doesn’t go the extra mile to sound like its 1987, nor do they attempt an archival/complete collection of the old songbook. If you’ve showed up for this one you’re already a Death fan and as such you’ll get a solid ~27 minute “proto-Death” album which is squarely in service to the material, slickly presented but also smart enough to avoid any unfounded self-inserts or mauled pieces. A moderately high recommendation.

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