Using Sickness as a Hero

This six-song EP was as close as Human Remains ever got to making a real album. While there is a slight sense that this could have been even better with a bigger recording budget and a more powerful production job, this is still a great recording and is considered an overlooked classic by many underground grindcore/death metal followers. (Actually, the raw recording does have its charms and is preferable to some of the bigger-budget, more sanitized death metal productions from the same time period.) Songs such as "Weeding Out the Thorns" and "Rote" are great examples of the band's ability to sound both experimental and violently intense at the same time, mixing together blastbeat sections, heavy mid-tempo breakdowns, and strange, almost robotic-sounding parts where the guitars are making strange, clipped tapping noises and drummer Dave Witte's playing becomes purposely stiff — kind of like a metal Devo. There is also a refreshing absence of any clichéd death metal or grindcore riffs throughout the recording. The only reason to downgrade this EP is that, since going out of print, it has been replaced by the Where Were You When anthology, which combines this EP with the rest of the band's recordings (7"s, compilation tracks, demos, etc.) for just a few dollars more, making that the better buy.