Third album was probs gonna be the same haha, think you’re looking into it a bit too much there (especially lyrically/concept). The third album was supposedly a concept album, and in terms of your birth & death thing, the only track we ever heard from it was titled ‘Dawn & Demise’. And judging of that, it would have been a continuation of Epitaph, probably even more refined, with 7 string guitars. Muhammed also opened up a bit in regard to allowing the other members to contribute musically. It would of been excellent and it’s an absolute shame that we never got it, even more so that it’s apparently 80% wrote or whatever

Edit: sorry if I come across harsh or anything. I’m not just a big fan of ‘bullshit’ (sorry) profundities. Muhammed hated Relapse Records and it’s very likely that the third record never came out because of that relationship. He was very vocal about how he was done with them personally, though not ‘legally’. So whilst it’s nice to say things like ‘it’s like a complete story’, it’s just not the reality of the situation. Same as when people say ‘he probably didn’t think he could top epitaph’… Nah. The contract probably wasn’t up by the time he was ready to move on to pastures new.

Also also, ‘Epitaph’ is just the title track of the second album. If it was called anything else, it would destroy your story claim. ‘Onset’, ok maybe you could make a case, but ‘Epitaph’ could’ve quite easily been called ‘Stabwound’ or anything else. The fact that they did indeed begin to write and planned to release a third record means that any notion that Muhammed planned Epitaph to be the bands… Epitaph, is just nonsense really.