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Dead Head > The Feast Begins at Dawn > Reviews
Dead Head - The Feast Begins at Dawn

Flawed Production But KILLER Death Thrash Classic! - 93%

razorfistforce, April 12th, 2012

First off, this record's production does suck. It's very thin and rickety and the mix is quite uneven, but even a crap production cannot destroy these great songs. Dead Head are the epitome of my favorite style of extreme metal: '85-'93 death/thrash, bands that began during the golden age of speed/thrash metal in the mid-'80s, but increased the speed, the technicality, and intensity to levels previously unheard.

Bands like Insanity (San Fran), Sadus, early Protector, Assassin (Ger), Morbid Saint, Massacra, early Mutilator (France), Poison (Ger), Minotaur (Germany), Num Skull, Merciless (Sweden), Death Yell, Necrodeath, and scores of other great bands from around the globe were taking what was started by Slayer, Kreator, Sodom, etc. and further blended elements of crossover (just look at the T-shirts worn by Protector, Sadus, and Assassin, for example, in on-stage and lp insert photos and you see DRI, Cryptic Slaughter, proto-grind legends Siege, Ratos De Porao, Extreme Noise Terror etc.). So for a person like me who obsesses equally about heavy metal and hardcore punk, the death/thrash period is just pure gold. Not quite death metal or grind and too extreme to simply be labeled speed metal, these bands were on the cusp of a changing metal world (the rise of death metal, the demise of traditional metal due to watered-down corporate hair band crap on MTV, and by '91 the full-fledged assault of metal supremacy which was "grunge"). So the death/thrash period was very rad, brief, and will probably never occur again with such flavour.

Which brings us to Dead Head. Anyone who's heard Dead Head's early demos (many containing the songs which would make up "The Feast Begins At Dawn" lp) can just sense that this band was extremists of the best kind, taking Kreator (for example) and restructuring the style to be played at breakneck speed (often with radical tempo changes that stop/start on a dime at 200mph) with technical flourishes and throat-tearing vocals. Best of all, though, is they had CATCHY songs. One cannot resist thrashing along to a tune like "Slay Your Kind". Some of the early Dead Head demo material lacked a bass player, making it even in some ways sound more extreme. So if you were an early Dead Head fan who heard the demos or saw them live, the prospect of a debut lp must have been irresistible. Sadly, this wasn't quite to be.

I'm not an expert on the history of the engineering/production/mastering of Dead Head's debut lp "Feast Begins At Dawn", so I can't point to which individuals may have caused the record's mix and the drum production to be so strange. I was SO excited when I finally heard this album (having heard the demo material already) and I was very disappointed. Why was the production so screwy? But as the years have passed, I've grown to appreciate "Feast Begins..." quite a lot, because underneath that thin mix with the oddly triggered bass drum is a band that is absolutely tearing it up. The performance is not the problem. Some have criticized the drumming as being sloppy. I'd argue that some of this stuff is so fast (and with the triggers there to clarify every little nuance) that only a very small handful of drummers of that period could have played/sounded better considering the mix. The vocals have also been subject to criticism. They're love 'em or hate 'em, for sure. I way love 'em. They're so rabid and at times so spitfire (like Mille from Kreator on methamphetamine), it's just rad.

Thankfully, Dead Head would have MUCH better luck in the future in the studio with their second lp, "Dream Deceiver", sounding light years better than the debut. Years late, "Kill Division" would offer up a nearly flawless production of thrashing madness. Now to the main question (if you're reading this and haven't heard the "Feast Begins..." lp): should I buy/download/listen to "Feast Begins At Dawn"? It's a simple answer: yes, bUT, you should first pick up Dead Head's "Come To Salem", a compilation of early demo and unreleased pre-"Feast Begins..." material and is an essential collection of death/thrash at its D.I.Y. best. Also, you'll hear many of the songs from "Feast Begins..." in all their blazing and rabid Dutch glory.

Once you've grown to love the material on "Come To Salem" (or if you dig "Dream Deceiver" or "Kill Division" (I have not heard Dead Head's 2009 "Depression Tank" lp, so I can't comment on it) THEN you can listen to "Feast Begins At Dawn" with a knowledge of how great the songs are even despite a sadly flawed production. I think you'll find that like me, in the end the sheer intensity, fun, catchiness, and maniacal brilliance of Dead Head shines like a supernova even through a sub-par recording. Long live Dead Head and long live the spirit of death/thrash!

Classic songs, lacking production. Superb anyway - 95%

morbert, October 8th, 2007

There is only one flaw here. Only one! It is a big flaw, I must admit, but not big enough to ruin it all. The flaw I’m talking about is the production. The sound is very thin and metallic especially when compared to their earlier demo ‘The festering’.

Apart from that we have 43 minutes of the best extreme European thrash metal 1991 had to offer. Dead Head are famous for being an incredibly fast band but there are plenty of mid paced and even slower moments to be found on ‘The Feast Begins At Dawn’ making it a very complete album, easy to sit through in its entirety. For instance the very atmospheric song “In Your Room” and slow eerie moments in ‘Desolated By The Shining’ and ‘Slay Your Kind’ add a lot to the album as a whole.

Very significant for the Dead Head sound are the typical drums of Hans Spijker. Extremely hyperactive and not always perfectly tight. But the aggression and the stop-and-go attitude he puts in his playing, remain unequalled in the Dutch scene. Only ex-Thanatos/Sempiternal Deathreign drummer Remo van Arnhem had something similar in his early sound.

After the very good intro ‘Untergang des Abendlandes ’ the band immediately rages like a bunch of madmen on ‘Saved’ (earlier known as ‘Saved By Sciene’ on their first live tape). Also the extremely fast songs ‘Pesticide’ and ‘Rites Of Kandar’ proved Dead Head to be one of the fastest thrash metal bands from Europe in true early Kreator and Slayer style. The only songs I missed were ‘Sawn In Two’ (from ‘The Festering’ demo) and ‘I Tormentor’ (Metal In Rocks II compilation album)

Apart from these 'short' thrashers, songs like ‘The Festering’ and ‘From Belial’ harboured all sorts of full range thrash metal madness and are both of dynamical and compositional uniqueness. Had it not been for the production (and the rather dull album cover), this album would have been, by far, the best Dead Head album ever and for that matter one of the best thrash metal albums from Europe.