Death Angel, Act III: Maturity Takes a Bow
When the past intersects with the present at the full album live experience
Directions in music. The phrase is often mentioned with jazz, and many people might not believe it could apply to thrash metal. But when a band moves their sound north, south, east, or west of center and winds up challenging the routine and your mindset, it’s positive. Vital. New thoughts marinate, sometimes about what’s even possible. Seeing and hearing Death Angel play Act III on its 35th anniversary tour electrified that thinking as well as my memories—while like a Fuji apple in the fall, the LP is still crispy and tasty today.
Act III was released in April 1990, toward the end of my sophomore year of high school. I bought the full-length melting pot of riffs and themes on CD around the drop date. Considering where I was on the road with curiosity and creativity, it forced me to find words less generic than “good” or “interesting” to describe it. That said: Act III is a thrash album. No denying it or the killer solos or the social commentary or the clean production, but those funk elements are the real hook in differentiating their third LP from the pack.
None of the five guys had reached the age of 20 when Death Angel released their debut album in April 1987. Recorded in a tidy three days, The Ultra-Violence is “precocious.” For reasons including low funds, the production leans a little raw and muddy—or maybe murky, but better than demo quality. Clearer separation between instruments is needed in the mix, though their brand of Bay Area thrash was exhibiting a nascent spirit of adventure.
Frolic Through The Park followed 16 months later. This was no sophomore slump, and its adjective is “progressive.” The hippie in me loves the spacey, jammy side. Always felt like they’d tapped into their influences in an organic way, resulting in a kitchen sink of ideas that, with each progression in every song, repositioned the goalposts. To boot, the lyrics were smarter, production was several rungs up the ladder. I relish the dichotomy of their first two album titles.
Which brings us to Act III, Death Angel’s sole major label release. Let’s begin with the mysterious and lovely cover art: While not a concept album, it does play out as if in the theater depicted, with smoke coming from under the curtains to reveal…a new kind of madness? They were already diverging from the genre they’d helped define and shape, but this is an outfit that can’t be penned in, and funk can never be anything but optimistic. From political critique to personal conflict and overcoming obstacles to building unity, music and lyrics coalesced with skills and intellect. And the “mature” output taught us, among other things, about empowerment through vulnerability, a topic that’s still relevant.
Oh, right. No one in the band was 23 years old yet.
Only two members, vocalist Mark Osegueda and guitarist Rob Cavesteny, remain from the lineup that created Act III. No matter, because Death Angel continues to grow and pummel. Experiencing the album live threw me back into high school, then carried me through college and my 30s and 40s to when I didn’t rediscover it but came back to it during Covid. On the drive home from the dealership in my recently purchased CPO Subaru Forester, the disinfected and detailed smell was no match for the sounds from the speakers. The car was christened with DA thrash.
I’ve been to dozens of full LP shows. The beauty is in hearing tracks that, outside of special runs, won’t normally appear on setlists, or not at all. So, “Stop” and “Discontinued” and “Stagnant” equaled a field day for me. The song titles alone connect them, but the symbiotic ingenuity of the trio will forever stick as my high points—pit-stirring grooves, accomplished changes, the balanced dark-and-light emotions. These are the moments within the bigger moments. The micro vs. the macro. It’s why you do this, to seek out something different. Act III. And in a converted industrial space in Brooklyn, I channeled the album’s live energy into the optimism of community, sharing my sense of forward motion with more than a thousand thrash-minded individuals.
Death Angel 12/04/2025 Setlist
Seemingly Endless Time, Stop, Veil Of Deception, The Organization, Discontinued, A Room With A View, Stagnant, EX-TC, Disturbing The Peace, Falling Asleep
E: Humanicide, Cult Of The Used, The Moth, Lost, Territorial Instinct/Bloodlust, Thrown To The Wolves