Fate: The Best of Death

It could be stipulated that the advent of direct mp3 downloads has brought about the dual accomplishment of resurrecting the single and all but destroying the purpose of compilations. Being a full length album junkie myself, neither one of these changes in the economics of recording industry profit-mongering really phases me. But for some reason I found myself back at the bargain bin, gazing at a really beat up jewel case with a somewhat faded booklet containing this best of release from Death's so-called true death metal era (aka the "Scream Bloody Gore" to "Human" era). My better sense wants to punch me in the face for this decision, but at a mere $2.50 I figured what could be the harm?

Most compilations of this sort tend to get created in order for a band to fulfill a contract that isn't as good as it seemed at its signing, such as the very similarly pointless and poorly constructed "Capitol Punishment" put out by what was left of 90s Megadeth. But "Fate" doesn't really even have the excuse of ending a bad contract as it came about through One Flag Records getting rights to the songs via Combat Records, nor does it contain any new or exclusive material not on 4 already published full length albums. The polarizing nature of not only death metal, but Death as a band, pretty well invalidates anyone with a fleeting interest being the type to purchase this album, so the lack of bonus material already puts this thing at a disadvantage, even in the context of 1992 when online digital sale of individual songs was not yet possible.

All things thus being considered, the only real value that this unfortunate collection could have would be through its unique presentation and flow. In such things, song selection and pacing are key, and on this front this thing fails even harder. The two offerings from "Human" utterly clash with the rest of the material on here, and the inclusion of "Spiritual Healing" throws additional pacing issues onto a compilation dominated by the archaic 80s death/thrash that came in shorter and simpler doses. "Mutilation" and "Zombie Ritual" are obvious choices from a standpoint of a greatest hits approach as they lend the most towards accessibility and catchiness, as does "Pull The Plug", but these songs are spread out in the track order. Indeed, the selected ordering of these songs comes off as completely random apart from putting "Zombie Ritual" at the beginning.

I might be one to dismiss this album as mere profit-seeking, but the problem is that this doesn't really profit anyone. How this could have sold to any great extent is beyond me, as Death's devout followers would already possess all of these songs, and few fans of Poison or Pearl Jam would have ponied up for any of these songs. This is the handiwork of people who don't have a genuine understanding of the actual market and how death metal consumers tend to operate, hence the auspicious shortage of greatest hits compilations of this sort popping up in affiliate bands unless they come with plenty of exclusively released perks. I can't fully bomb this thing because all of these songs are great, but even at under $3, this is just not worth getting.

I've already gone on about Relativity's debauchery with my review of Dark Angel's Decade of Chaos compilation, but the California thrash cult is not the only artist to receive such a worthless tribute in that label's hands after they acquired much of the Combat roster. Naturally, Death would see some exploitation, being that Chuck and company were one of the hottest and better selling acts to make the transfer, and the result is Fate: The Best of Death, an absolute waste of plastic and print that should never have passed through the lips of any womb, corporate or artistic. As you have guessed, this is nothing more than reprinted tracks from the first four albums of the band's catalog, with some added liner notes (gee thanks).

Let's be perfectly blunt about this: Death fans fucking love Death, and by this point unless they were nursing a crack or heroin addiction they had likely accrued the funds, even via a paper route or Saturday morning lawn mowing gig, to purchase all of the band's prior material. Their new home distribution center, Relativity might have realized this and then worked with the band to produce a decent collection. After all, this band had a huge number of demos and rehearsal material leading up to their Combat signing, and a few strings pulled for permission might have netted us some 2xCD set that would be well worth owning. Instead, in some blatant attempt to rob the dregs of naivety, they chose instead to reprint 10 tracks that all but the suckers were already in possession of: "Zombie Ritual", "Mutilation" and "Baptized in Blood" from Scream Bloody Gore; "Left to Die", "Open Casket" and "Left to Die" from Leprosy; "Altering the Future" and the title track from Spiritual Healing; and "Together as One" and "Suicide Machine" from their then-latest, Human. So basically 10/34 of their songs to that point.

Is it an amazingly representative track list? In so far as it contains a fair spread of material that favors the earlier (better) albums, it could be worse. But then, what is the point? Few if any fans of this band had an interesting hovering below pure obsession, and anyone new to their sound would be far more rewarded by pursuing any of their full-lengths than this, even Human which was creating circle jerks among the underground (though I found it a disappointment). This was made for nothing else than filling the coffers and fueling the corporate record industry schema, and it has absolutely zero value to anyone with a grain of sense. Why not just print a greatest hits album for every Death record, with the same track lists mixed up in order of preference by some shill? Could have made four times the money, for four times the garbage. Remastered or not, this sucks. Curse such greasy cash ins and all who support them.

This is just a poorly put together "best of" album for Death. About half the songs on here could have been replaced with much better ones, and some of the songs that are excluded kind of make you think, "the guy who put this together must have smoked some bad crack".
First off, I have a problem with the fact there's only two songs off Human represented here, and the best two (Flattening of Emotions and Lack of Comprehension) aren't even here. I would have taken off Together As One and put those there. Leprosy is represented with three songs: Open Casket, Left To Die, and Pull The Plug. Once again, this has you screaming "WHERE'S LEPROSY?" I think many would agree the self-titled song is the best off the album. Their first and very well respected Scream Bloody Gore album is represented with three songs as well: Zombie Ritual, Mutilation, and Baptized In Blood, and once again, it seems like they just drew the songs for this best of out of a hat. Where is Denial Of Life and Evil Fucking Dead?!?! C'mon, that's just inexcusable. Next up and the last album this comp drew from is Spiritual Healing and is by far the worst represented. First off, we only get two songs. We get the great song Spiritual Healing, which I'm very glad to see here, and then we get the boring Altering The Future. C'mon, where's Living Monstrosity? Where's Within The Mind? Where's Defensive Personality? Simply unacceptable.
So in conclusion, this is simply one crappy "Best Of". I can't think of one good thing to say about it. You're better off just getting the albums. Oh yeah, and the one page of liner notes suck.

Noramlly I hate best of/compilation albums for bands that are still active and/or for bands that have been around less than ten years. Here we have just that...except for one thing, its not that bad a compilation, its done quite well.

On Death's previous releases they have tons of great songs of the four albums...and a good many that stand out. This here compilation has managed to capture all the songs that stand out among the barrage of allready good Death songs up to this point. They included the best of Screaming Bloody Gore: Zombie Ritual, Mutilation. The best of Leprosy: Open Casket, Pull the Plug. The best of Human: Suicide Machine, Together As One. They messed up on Spirtual Healing though...the band didn't put on Living Monstrosity, the most powerful song of the band from that album. Aside from that they captured everything up to this point well without polluting the album with 15 plus tracks.

This album is easy to find new and used, for cheap...its a great record you can get for around 5 bucks to see if you will like Death's earlier stuff. Other than this though it serves no purpose. Its put together well...and aside from a missing track or two that should be on here its done well. This though serves no purpose to Death fans who, or will, own death's albums...for that I take off points.