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User
Reviews 3
Approval 100%
Soundoffs 68
Album Ratings 2316
Objectivity 74%
Last Active 01-15-22 3:54 am
Joined 09-30-11
Review Comments 1,246
| Death - Live Recordings Ranked
If I think of all my favorite bands and how their live evolution was curated (officially or otherwise), Death falls to the bottom of that list. Very few live recordings exist of Chuck Schuldiner and his ever-changing lineup of world beaters, and those recordings that do exist have terrible sound quality.
For those of you who look at Death's official live output – especially the 2020 Non:Analog – On:Stage Series – and don't really know what's okay and what's not, this list is for you. Let's do this! | | 1 |  | Death
Live in L.A.: Death & Raw
The best live Death, and one that every Death fan should own. It's an energetic early December show from the world-famous Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles, CA. Go read Thor's expert review now. | | 2 |  | Death
Vivus!
Hey, you get Death's best and second-best live recordings in one package. How can you lose? | | 3 |  | Death
Live in Eindhoven
This May '98 set from Dynamo Open Air is excellent. This sounds like a front-of-house (desk) recording where there were one or two ambient mics set up.
What I like about shows from this tour is that the guitar/bass solo tradeoffs at the end of “The Philosopher” are back. | | 4 |  | Death
Non:analog - On:stage Series - Montreal
I love Symbolic, so naturally, I love this show. The boys were hot, and the crowd was pretty wild. “Spiritual Healing” is a great opener. The furthest they go back in the discography is “Pull The Plug”, but other than these two tracks, everything else is from Human onward. The end of “The Philosopher” is a bit of a letdown because the guitar and bass don't trade off solos; however, Chuck and Bobby Koelble trade guitar solos instead, and that's pretty cool. Despite that personal complaint, Death puts on a spirited performance and the show is great.
Of this entire Non:Analog... series, this one has the best sound quality. It's an audience recording, which means that there was some dude in the room with a nice recorder and a small, good-quality mic. I own enough bootlegs to know that this guy was probably at the back of the room in the center, perhaps in a balcony or a loge. | | 5 |  | Death
Non:Analog - On:Stage Series - Tampa
A somewhat-listenable recording from the Leprosy Tour. It sounds to me like the audio source was a video camera. You'll probably going to listen to it in a controlled environment and not in your car with the windows down. I'm bummed that there's no “Leprosy” or “Born Dead”, but it's still a good, early-era setlist and an excellent performance from the band.
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From here on out, the audio is bad at its very best. | | 6 |  | Death
Non Analog - On Stage Series - Tijuana
The only show of this series exclusively from the Spiritual Healing tour. It's a pretty bad audience recording, but it could be worse. The sound is consistent, unlike a lot of other shows where it vacillates from shitty-to-really-shitty at any time.
Death is on fire here, probably charged up from eating some authentic Mexican cuisine earlier in the day. I wasn't really a big Death fan until Human, but from everything I've seen, read, and heard, this was a weird time for the band, namely, the Murphy/Schuldiner friction. | | 7 |  | Death
Non Analog - On Stage Series - California
I was excited for this one. The Showcase Theater in Corona, CA was one of my favorite places to go see shows! WOO HOO! The “Woo hoo” turned to “Boo hoo” really quick: the sound is bad, which made me sad.
Chuck and Co. perform a very spirited Symbolic era set, but the audio is very tough to stomach. | | 8 |  | Death
Non:Analog - On:Stage Series - Detroit, MI 1993
Some Individual Thought Patterns for your soul! Yet again, the performance was excellent. They play at least one song from each album, and I was especially excited to see them open with “Leprosy” – which is one of my all-time favorite Death songs – but the sound is terrible, and my excitement turned to excrement. This show was recorded with a PlaySkool dual-mic cassette player/recorder on low-bias tape. | | 9 |  | Death
Non:Analog - On:Stage Series - 1990, 1991 Unknown
"Unknown"...what the hell, man? Yeah, this one actually sounds slightly better than #8 Detroit, but that is not saying much. Great performances, as always, but the quality still sucks, the guitars have a few more out-of-tune moments than usual, and a couple of the songs are incomplete. “Land Of No Return”...it returned, but with a different title. | | 10 | | Death
Any Death live recordings before SBG
For historic value only. I'd love to hear any of them where the sound quality would be even as good as poor, but they all sound dreadful. They're good only for the in-between song banter. That's it. | | 11 |  | Death
Non:Analog - On:Stage Series - Belgium 12-23-1991
Human tour, audio manure. *sigh* I'd have loved to hear this show based on the personnel alone, but the sound is dreadful. From what I could tell, it was a great performance. | | 12 |  | Death
Non:Analog - On:Stage Series - New Rochelle
A great performance and setlist from the Leprosy tour, but the sound quality is terrible. It bums me out that they open with “Leprosy” and the sound is complete trash. | | 13 |  | Death
Non:Analog - On:Stage Series - Chicago, IL
Last and certainly least...coming in at unlucky # 13 is this turd. This April 1987 show is from the Scream Bloody Gore tour, and whoever recorded this garbage...well, I hope they made better life choices than live-recording choices because this one completely blows, and it just might be one of the most highly anticipated recordings of this series.
It sounds like it was a great performance by the band, but I can't be sure that I'm not projecting some sort of quality on to the shitstorm-of-a-recording that this is. I hope I didn't insult any shitstorms there. | |
MetalMarcJK
05.27.22 | It really, really hurts me to give a low rating to ANYTHING by Death, but I don't want to inflate the value of any of the Non:Analog - On:Stage Series recordings that don't deserve it. I'm sorry, fellow Death fans, but I rated the albums how I truly felt about them, with audio quality and listenability being the main reason for their low ranking. Trust me: most of these are flat-out bad. | Koris
05.27.22 | Damn, great list! I'll admit that I've largely stayed away from Death's live output because of the sound quality, but those top 4 or 5 recordings are still quite good | MetalMarcJK
05.27.22 | Indeed, they are. Thanks, Koris. | Deez
05.27.22 | Honestly just dont fk with Live albums at all. I like live in LA cos its a DVD (Dynamo too I guess) Was lucky enough to see them twice so cant be bothered listening to, especially, the shoddy older recordings | FR33L0RD
05.27.22 | Ohh! this is so nice Deez. Death DVD & Live albums rules, yes. | Hyperion1001
05.27.22 | this one is my favorite
https://youtu.be/IvlBroKv9a8 | deathschool
05.27.22 | Hey.
| DungeonBoy
05.27.22 | Really curious about checking out those recent non analog releases. 1 and 2 rip! | kkarron
05.27.22 | So what's up with those non:analog releases that have apparently materialized from nowhere? Do they actually want money for those clearly shite-quality bootlegs (I mean, the band sounds tight as fuck, I'm talking sound quality)? Is it like just a treat for Death fans? Considering they're up on youtube for free, I think the latter right? | MetalMarcJK
06.05.22 | Hyperion, that’s a rad show! I love it! I think i’ve watched/listened to it half a dozen times in the last couple weeks. | MetalMarcJK
06.05.22 | DungeonBoy...to be honest, check out the Montreal show...eh, Tampa, as well. All the shows below Montreal on the list have totally unsat audio. | MetalMarcJK
08.09.23 | THIS is one of my all time favorite Death shows: New York, 1990 (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D1luK6hP6bg). The sound is good, the set list is great, and James Murphy was KILLIN’ it! |
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