Human is the fourth studio album by American death metal band Death, released on October 22, 1991, by Relativity Records. The album marked the beginning of a major stylistic change for Death, being more technically complex and progressive than the band's previous efforts. The lyrics are more introspective when compared to the gore-based lyrics of Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy or the social commentary on Spiritual Healing. This new style would continue to evolve on all following Death albums. This is the only album to feature Cynic members Paul Masvidal on guitars and Sean Reinert on drums, both only 20 at that time, and the first to feature bassist Steve DiGiorgio. Bass player Steve DiGiorgio left after the recording of this album. He was replaced by Scott Carino, who toured with the band in 1991 and 1992. Carino also recorded additional bass overdub on "Cosmic Sea" after a couple of wrong were discovered during the mixing stage. The rest of the song was recorded by DiGiorgio. In 2011, Relapse Records and Perseverance Holdings Ltd. re-issued the album to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This edition was remixed by Jim Morris of Morrisound Recording Studios, includes bonus tracks, and was authorized by Schuldiner intellectual property lawyer Eric Greif. Greif stated that it was necessary to remix the album since "unbelievably Sony lost the original tape of the album mixes and any attempt to remaster from a CD would be a ripoff". Human was released to critical acclaim from music publications and is seen as a pivotal release in the development of the technical death metal subgenre and on extreme metal in general. In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine placed the album as the 70th greatest metal album of all time.
Reception
Human is a highly influential extreme metal album, according to Jeff Wagner in his 2010 text on progressive metal, Mean Deviation. It is Death's best-selling album, having sold 100,000 copies in the United States by 1995. It was ranked number 82 on the October 2006 issue of Guitar World magazine's list of the greatest 100 guitar albums of all time. A music video was made for the song "Lack of Comprehension", which received airplay on MTV. As of 2008, Human had sold over 600,000 copies worldwide, with the U.S. Soundscan listed as 100,000 units.
