LEFT TO DIE — the death metal supergroup reuniting DEATH alumni Rick Rozz and Terry Butler with Matt Harvey (EXHUMED, GRUESOME) and Gus Rios (GRUESOME) — have signed to Relapse Records, which will release the band's debut album, Initium Mortis, on July 17.
Initium Mortis resurrects the rawest corner of DEATH's history, drawing on demos and rehearsal recordings from the Mantas/DEATH era of 1983-1987 and giving them proper production for the first time. The album follows the quartet's touring run performing DEATH's Leprosy and Spiritual Healing in full across the US, Europe, Latin America, Australia and Asia.
"I gleefully combed through the myriad Death/Mantas demos and rehearsals looking for stuff that would make sense for a record," said Harvey, who calls Initium Mortis a kind of "alternate-universe" version of the Scream Bloody Gore tracklist. He noted that Rozz's fingerprints run through much of the material, including "Slaughterhouse."
Butler said the goal was to give long-time fans proper-sounding versions of songs that once existed only as barely audible demo tapes. "This is ground zero — where it all started: three 15-year-old kids creating Death Metal history," he said, calling opening track "Archangel" "controlled chaos at its finest."
Rozz called it "really cool to be able to hear these tunes from 1984 properly," while Rios — who calls DEATH's Leprosy his favorite death metal album — said finishing the record felt "flat out surreal": "These songs were all new to me... to hear them with clean and solid, yet classic analog style production is like getting new Death songs."
Initium Mortis follows the singles "Witch Of Hell" and "Legion Of Doom" and arrives on CD, LP, cassette and digital, with preorders open now via Relapse.com.
Track listing:
- Legion Of Doom
- Archangel
- Power Of Darkness
- Zombie
- Witch Of Hell
- Rise Of Satan
- Summoned To Die
- Mantas
- Slaughterhouse
- Death By Metal
Order "Initium Mortis": Relapse.com