Feast on the Flesh of the Dead

Oddly enough, I like this a great deal more than 'Hymns Of The Sick', which is strange because I never thought to myself, 'man, Deaden sounds like a band that probably lost their way from their demos'. Even the tracks from that album featured on the live half of this CD come across better: more feral, intense, and, well, death metal for lack of a better term. I think the quality of the material on this CD has to be at least partially related to production; 'Hymns Of The Sick' had a pretty bland, flat mixing job that set everything about even but didn't let anything stand out. Even the live tracks on this release have more life to them; it's like the band was having a really fucking bad day when they recorded the full-length; nothing else explains such a disparate quality change.

There's a genuine breed of malevolence on the demo tracks here (none of which were re-recorded for the full-length, for some reason); they're way more brutal and vicious than anything on the LP despite being of a similar style. Deaden's brand of churning, mostly blast-free brutal death metal comes across much better with the degraded, demo-level production, but moreover, the writing just seems better: the riffs are more memorable, the drumwork more ambitious and interesting, and even the vocals have a better delivery. Even the periodic sample usage seems unusually well tuned for a demo-level band- what exactly happened between this and the full-length? This is actually fairly reflective of the better parts of mid-'90s death metal; despite what a confusing time it was the genre, a few bands managed to navigate it pretty well, and Deaden is a good example.

The live tracks are also quite strong, with a thick, bass-heavy production and a substantial amount of ferocity in the playing. I don't know, maybe Deaden was just a band never cut out for the professional recording setting, but whatever the reason might be, this material is probably the strongest of theirs I've heard. The riffs are particularly evil at points, with a nicely sinister quality helping to differentiate them from so many other bands from the same time period, and the stop/start song construction gives it a technical edge alongside some of the stranger riff construction and oddly musical drumwork. This is genuinely good music if not super original.

Now despite all this, 'Feast On The Flesh Of The Dead' is hardly a mandatory release; it's decidedly above average but still not incredibly special. However, I will say that of all of Deaden's material, this is the CD you should probably invest your time and money in; it has enough memorability and complexity to last through multiple listens even if it's not an essential release. Hardly something I heartily recommend to every metalhead, but it's worth your time if you're inclined to this style.