DEATH

One of the first death metal bands, originally founded in 1983 as Mantas, changed their name to Death in late 1984.

Death disbanded due to Chuck Schuldiner dying of high-grade pontine glioma (a malignant type of brain cancer that invades the brainstem) on December 13th, 2001. The cause of death was that he took the drug vincristine to help combat the cancer and his condition worsened as he became ill with pneumonia. However, Chuck put Death on hold already in late 1998 after The Sounds of Perseverance tour in order to focus on his other project Control Denied.

Clearly, this band is not to be confused with Death, the African American garage rock/proto-punk band from Detroit, Michigan.

Throughout their career, Death went through constant line-up changes; however, the long-enduring name was and still is regarded as a moniker of mastermind Chuck Schuldiner, who was the only member to appear on all recordings, except for one demo, which Kam Lee released, under the name Death, after Chuck's move to San Francisco in 1985. The demo is better considered Massacre material.

Throughout the years, Death had some dramatic changes in their sound; in the beginning, before even releasing a demo and under the name Mantas, the band wanted to play Venom/Celtic Frost influenced metal, but upon hearing bands like Possessed, Mantas wanted to play and expand death metal. Thus, they decided to change their name to Death, to sum up, what their music and lyrics were about. So Death started off as death metal with gore-related lyrics, as heard on Scream Bloody Gore. Starting with Human, the band underwent a noticeable transformation, with lyrics not relating to gore but more to the human mind; starting Individual Thought Patterns, the band had brought in progressive elements: thus the last studio album, The Sound of Perseverance, has a sound significantly different from that of the traditional death metal the band originally helped to define.

Beginning in 2012, former members of the band and others have toured as cover/tribute band under the names Death to All, Death DTA, and Death DTA Tours. These acts have the support of the Schuldiner family's Perseverance Holdings Ltd., which manages Chuck's legacy.