One has to wonder if French Canadians Gorguts didn't actually intend to name their debut album, 1991's Considered Dead, "Considered Death" (no, not "Deaf"!), as its contents surely embody the purest form of old-school death metal.

Or at least old-school death metal as defined by pioneering efforts like Beneath the Remains and Arise from Brazilians Sepultura: hyperfast, very technical, ultrabrutal, but also characterized by healthy injections of melodic guitar harmonies and slower doom sections.

More importantly, like Sepultura (but unlike hundreds of also-rans) Gorguts were talented enough to pull this complex death gumbo off convincingly, using the potent double whammy of "Stiff and Cold" and "Disincarnate" to kick start both their album and career in great style.

Ensuing eardrum grinders like the title track and "Bodily Corrupted" aren't as immediately successful, but hardly disappoint in the long run, either; and with frequent bright spots continuing to surface throughout the disc (check out the particularly melodic instrumental "Waste of Mortality," the word-inventing "Rottenatomy," and monstrous closer "Inoculated Life," featuring a guest guitar solo from Death legend James Murphy), it's easy to see why Gorguts were considered sure-fire candidates to lead death metal into a bright future.

Sadly, the band's record company, Roadrunner, felt otherwise, inexplicably dropping Gorguts after just one more album, and consigning them to a long ramble through the underground metal wilderness before eventually resurfacing, almost unrecognizable, as a death-jazz outfit five years later.

Regardless of that, Considered Dead remains a notable, if not exactly groundbreaking example of death metal's glory days.

[Note: Considered Dead was later remastered, reissued, and paired with its successor The Erosion of Sanity as part of Roadrunner's Two From the Vault series, in 2004.].