Chuck Schuldiner, maybe the man that valued universal honor and respect within the heavy music more than anyone else. A simple man, who was known for his uncured devotion to music, that himself in the mid 80's started building the gigantic structure called Death Metal. It wasn't necessary for one to meet Chuck to see and feel those that were deep inside of him; the progress and constant development from album to album, in a time that the word progressive was only found in dictionaries, showed above all that it's about a man of high spirit.
From Scream Bloody Gore to Human, from Individual Thought Patterns to his swan song with Death, The Sound Of Perseverance, Death was the definition of a restless band and maybe the most harmonic combination of brutal music with melodic elements. He was so young and talented that it's almost impossible for one to imagine how far he could go as a musician and what else he could have offered to all of us. Unfortunately the saying Only the good die young came true in this case, and somewhere in the end of 2001, the metal community mourned the loss of one of the most complemented musicians ever appeared in this music.
These days, Karmageddon Media releases the 2nd part of the Zero Tolerance series, which contains 2 demos of the band, long before they were named Death and a live performance in 1990 in a Texas club which holds a rather bootleg nature. As you can imagine the sound is, in best case, raw and rough. Especially in the demos you can barely distinguish the instruments and the early literature work of Chuck. The sound is sensibly improved in the 1990 tape, and those who worship the 1st period of Death will really enjoy this live, as it contains some of the best songs ever written by Chuck.
Someone could wonder the reason of existence of this release. Is it because Karmageddon Media was sensitized towards Chuck's evergreen work and decided to offer to his fans his very rare works, or it is all about money? Allow me to sidetrack the 2nd interpretation and not only because that's the way companies work, but also because if they really appreciated this music and above all Chuck as a human being, the could 've released this package while he was still alive, after he disbanded Death (somewhere about 1998).
I'm a die-hard Death fan and I'm very happy that we all now have the opportunity to own some very unique and rare works of our favorite band. I would be blissful though, if that would be happening under the right circumstances.
Chuck lives.