UMUR "Pieces of Mankind" is the debut full-length studio album by Greek technical/progressive death/thrash metal act Acid Death. The album was released through Metal Mad Music in October 1998. Acid Death formed in 1989 and released a couple of demos, a single, and split with Avulsed, before releasing "Pieces of Mankind". They disbanded in 2001, but not before releasing their sophomore studio album "Random's Manifest" in 2000. Acid Death reunited in 2011 and have released new material since.

The 1990s were ripe with pioneering technical/progressive death and thrash metal acts like Atheist, Cynic, Death, Pestilence, and Gorguts (just to mention some of the best known acts on the scene, because there are a host of other lesser known contemporary acts out there too). Some successful and some who didn´t make as great waves, and some who have only been recognized retrospectively. The fact is a sub genre was born in those years, which influenced several other artists to produce music in a similar vein. Most of the artists mentioned above are "first wave" technical/progressive death/thrash metal acts, but although Acid Death were formed in 1989, the fact that they didn´t release an album until 1998 makes them more of a "second wave" technical/progressive death/thrash metal acts.

By the time they released "Pieces of Mankind", the interest in the genre had diminished greatly compared to the interest in the early 1990s, which is probably one of the reasons why Acid Death aren´t one of the best known artists on the scene. Another is the quality of the music on the 10 track, 44:45 minutes long album, which is certainly high, but doesn´t quite reach the heights of the top notch artists in the genre. I´d put Acid Death in the same second tier catagory as artists like Sadist and Alarum, who arguably released some great quality music, but who also didn´t quite reach the heights of the artists mentioned in the above paragraph.

Stylistically the music on "Pieces of Mankind" is technical/progressive death/thrash metal. Lead vocalist/bassist Savvas Betinis has a raw voice and relatively powerful delivery, which sometimes fall under the growling vocal style catagory, but predominantly sounds more like raw thrash metal style vocals. The tracks are relatively complex featuring both multible tempo- and time signature changes and quite a few adventurous compositional details. Fusion influenced drumming, intriguing death/thrash riffs, skillfully played guitar solos, and some atmospheric parts to make it all a bit more varied. That´s the basis of the music.

For all the good intentions, the high level musicianship, and the decent sounding production, the songwriting unfortunately ends up bringing the listening experience down a bit. It´s not a major issue, but the material really aren´t that memorable. The vocals are also a bit one-dimensional and emotionless, and while there are several great musical moments on the album, it´s still like there are far too many of the riffs and the song sections which are unremarkable. The tracks simply lack hooks and killer riffs. It´s still an entertaining release, and especially the high level musicianship (and in particular the fusion influenced drumming) is really impressive, so there are enough quality here to warrant a 3.5 star (70%) rating.