Death - The Sound Of Perseverance

Written by Roman Doez on 20.01.2026 at 23:02

Randomly decided to give this another shot, just in case
Nope, still definitely not my thing. There are several good ideas to be found here but their execution is genuinely painful, it's one of the few albums that elicit a physical reaction from me.
Oh well, at least "Scavenger Of Human Sorrow" is pretty good.

I swear Roman I don't get you on that one hahaha. This is by far my favourite Death album and there's literally no track that I don't like. Always been shocking to me how low you rate this one and how much you despise it. Also I don't get what you mean by the execution being painful.

To me the dissonance of this album is not only deliberate but it is part of the appeal... It's what makes my ears interested. Because its not like most other stuff you hear (well a lot more nowadays and thanks to Death, Gorguts, Nocturnus and Atheist really). It's chaotic and formulaic at the same time, hard to explain.

Written by Guib on 13.02.2026 at 02:59

I swear Roman I don't get you on that one hahaha. This is by far my favourite Death album and there's literally no track that I don't like. Always been shocking to me how low you rate this one and how much you despise it. Also I don't get what you mean by the execution being painful.

To me the dissonance of this album is not only deliberate but it is part of the appeal... It's what makes my ears interested. Because its not like most other stuff you hear (well a lot more nowadays and thanks to Death, Gorguts, Nocturnus and Atheist really). It's chaotic and formulaic at the same time, hard to explain.

My main issue is mostly with the pacing and the structure of each song. Everytime there's a cool idea or something interesting being explored it just skips to something else entirely and most of the time it doesn't work at all for me.
For example, the chorus of "Spirit Crusher" completely kills the pace of the song, I really don't like that chorus and it comes before and after two pretty fun sections. And it feels like the album is just constantly doing this, ruining the little fun I'm having by hiding it inside songs that feel randomly cobbled together and making me go through tedious sections before the good stuff.
It makes the whole album super frustrating and annoying to listen to. 4/10 is probably harsher than it needs to be but I can't see myself rating this above a 5 because the experience is just so irritating.
I also think the vocals add another layer of irritation and just make the experience a lot worse (The Fragile Art Of Existence, on the other hand, is partly salvaged by its vocals. But I haven't listened to that album in several years.)
I think Symbolic also suffers from similar issues, but TSOP really amplifies them to a degree that makes it a chore to listen to.

tldr: I think the songs don't flow very well and a lot of stuff the album tries just doesn't sound good to me. And I don't like the vocals.

This is by far my least favorite Death album.

It definitely has some standout tracks like “Scavenger of Human Sorrow,” “Spirit Crusher,” and of course “Voice of the Soul,” plus an awesome cover of “Painkiller.” But the rest of the album just doesn’t do much for me.

No matter how often I revisit songs like “Bite the Pain,” “Story to Tell,” “Flesh and the Power It Holds,” “To Forgive Is to Suffer,” or “A Moment of Clarity”, they just don’t really click. I find them hard to get into and honestly, boring and uninteresting.

Overall the album feels very hit-or-miss to me and more often than not, it’s a miss. That’s why it’s the only Death album I’d consider mid-tier even after listening to it many times over the past two decades. It has some incredible highs but they’re mixed in with tracks that feel pretty forgettable.