DEATH released "The Sound of Perseverance" on August 31st, 1998, through Nuclear Blast — the seventh and final studio album Chuck Schuldiner completed before his death from brain cancer in 2001. Recorded at Morrisound in Tampa with Schuldiner on vocals and guitar, Shannon Hamm on guitar, Scott Clendenin on bass and Richard Christy on drums, it stood furthest from the band's 1987 death metal roots: longer compositions, a higher and sharper vocal register, and progressive arrangements that pointed toward the CONTROL DENIED album Schuldiner would finish next. "Spirit Crusher" and "Flesh and the Power It Holds" became the definitive late-period DEATH statements, and the record closed with a cover of JUDAS PRIEST's "Painkiller." AllMusic later called it "DEATH's finest hour, and easily one of the top metal albums of all time." No farewell in the genre has aged better.
