For the first time in twelve years, work has begun on the long-awaited second
CONTROL DENIED album, to be released via
Relapse Records. Guitarist
Shannon Hamm and producer
Jim Morris of
Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida have been reviewing material recorded by the band before
CONTROL DENIED mainman — and
DEATH mastermind —
Chuck Schuldiner's untimely passing.
Chuck — who died in December 2001 after a battle with pontine glioma, a rare type of brain tumor — began work on the CD, tentatively titled
"When Machine And Man Collide", but never managed to finish the effort before his health quickly deteriorated in the months leading up to his tragic death. The remaining members of the group — bassist
Steve DiGiorgio, vocalist
Tim Aymar, guitarist
Shannon Hamm, and drummer
Richard Christy — subsequently announced their desire to complete the album and release it in
Chuck's memory, but legal hassles between
Schuldiner's family and
Hammerheart Records (to whom
Chuck was signed at the time of his death) put the entire project on hold. (
Karmageddon Media — formerly
Hammerheart Records — has since issued various incomplete demo recordings as two separate low-quality albums,
"Zero Tolerance" and
"Zero Tolerance II".)
Chuck's mother,
Jane Schuldiner, previously stated about the unfinished recordings: "[
Chuck's] last masterpiece deserves more than to be released as unfinished bits of rehearsal room recordings on CD, or to be grabbed for free on the Internet. It deserves to be finished by the rest of the band and to be released on a full-length album, titled:
'When Machine And Man Collide'."
CONTROL DENIED's legendary first album,
"The Fragile Art of Existence", got the deluxe reissue treatment in October 2010 through
Relapse Records.
"The Fragile Art of Existence", originally released in 1999 to critical acclaim, was remastered, repackaged and features liner notes from
CONTROL DENIED drummer
Richard Christy, never-before-seen photographs, as well as over an hour of previously unreleased demo and rehearsal tracks.
Two versions of the
"The Fragile Art of Existence" reissue were made available. The worldwide version was a two-CD set including the original album plus a bonus CD of early demo material. The second version was limited to 1,000 copies and was a three-disc set including an extra bonus disc of demo tracks, many of which have
Schuldiner on vocals. The three-disc set was made available at
Relapse.com exclusively.
Pictured below:
Shannon Hamm and
Jim Morris at
Morrisound Recording in December 2012

