Charles Michael Schuldiner was the founding member of the American metal band Death. Death's first record, Scream Bloody Gore, was and is widely considered the first major death metal release. The two proceeding records, Leprosy and Spiritual Healing, would continue to develop Chuck's style. In the early 90s, the original Death lineup utterly disintegrated. Turning to his friends, Chuck decided to continue on with Death, and in 1991 released the monumental Human, arguably their finest and most influential release.
Never one to leave well enough alone, Chuck decided that the sound and lyrics of Human-progressive and technical with philosophical and deep lyrics as opposed to just gore-were ideas he wanted to extrapolate on. Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic were Chuck's next two Death records each uniquely Death, each with their own distinct flavor and character. In the mid nineties, the idea of a more melodic group with an actual singer entered Chuck's mind. He started planning, getting songs together, but fans and record labels pushed him to do one more Death record. The Sound of Perseverance, the last Death record, would be their most challenging, complex, and lengthy work to date, and it is still my all-time favorite Death record.
Chuck began work on Control Denied in the late nineties. In 1999, The Fragile Art of Existence was released, a unique blend of technical, melodic, progressive, and power metal influences. Things were looking up for the group until the bassist died, ironically, exactly one year and one day before Chuck himself lost his battle with a rare form of brain cancer. Chuck's legacy and music is not to be forgotten.