If Chuck Schuldiner had survived, he would have turned 46 this May. As luck would have it, Gorod and a handful of other tech/death bands on the "Bloodletting North America Tour" played Saint Vitus the week of his birthday. Schuldiner was most responsible for taking death metal from its primitive
origins and twisting it into its more progressive and technical forms; it would have been interesting to know his thoughts on the seemingly irreconcilable divide between the current old school revival and prog/tech death. Would "Evil Chuck" side with the kids slavishly devoted to the one-dimensional bludgeon of
Scream Bloody Gore and
Leprosy? Or would Schuldiner the fearless innovator find kinship with those that use his work from
Human onwards as a jumping off point to push the style to dizzying new heights?