If you ask me, the drastic musical departure displayed on later Death albums constitutes my referring to them as something other than death metal, especially The Sound of Perseverence. I find them to be overambitious, musically displeasing despite the technical ability displayed and full of poor lyrics and even worse vocals. Another problem that I have is that the albums don't sound spontaneous in the slightest and the musicians did nothing to convince me that they were doing anything other than going through the motions in the studio. The "Painkiller" cover on the last album is especially awful because of the musical rigidity and vocal similarity to Dani Filth.
I enjoy Scream Bloody Gore a lot, and each album after it successively less.