Trading Pieces

As far as their discography goes, Trading Pieces is the one that sounds off to the side a little bit. The rest of the albums—all of them—feel a little bit different. Trading Pieces has a little bit of quasi-slam parts that work incredibly well and really add a lot to the 30 minute masterstroke on offer here. That said, a lot of the trademark Deeds of Flesh facets are here in spades; it's brutally heavy, lightning-fast with mind-bending labyrinthine riffs that twist and turn and never, ever repeat. There is just so, so much going on here that it's almost impossible to unpack after just a couple of listens. It takes a little while to truly makes sense of and appreciate all that is going on here. Although the complexity would skyrocket on later releases, what's on offer here is definitely complex, technical, and maddening in many ways. I will say that it's probably their most 'accessible' record, most likely thanks to the short song lengths and quasi-slam parts mentioned previously. That said, it really is a lot to unpack.

The vocals are fucking perfect. Ultra-guttural, forceful and deranged without sounding like a pig or a cricket. In addition, there are frantic high-pitched screams peppered throughout each track, and the dichotomy between them is invigorating and jarring all at once. The vocal patterns are quite good, especially when the music slows down (but really, only for a couple of seconds) and the vocals get deeper. There is a strong synergy between the music and vocals and it really helps the album flow through to the end.

The drumming is absolutely stellar on this record. Fast, frantic and punchy. There is no triggering on the double bass, which makes each kick extremely satisfying, especially with good headphones. (pro-tip, if you can spare the cash, check out the Audio Technica MSR7B. Perfect cans for death metal). The drumming on this release is absolutely bonkers, with crushing double bass and incredible start-stop-blast-slam-blast-blast-fill-stop-start-blast elements going on. It's extremely effective and the drumming is probably the best part of this album. It's a phenomenal performance.

The guitars are great on this album. Razor-sharp and relentless. Every riff takes you down another dark corridor and you WILL get lost the first few times you hear this album, but give it a few more listens and you will fully appreciate the stunning technical prowess on display here. Now, I say technical, but I don't mean wanky noodling like a lot of TDM bands do, this is just bizarre, non-stop time changes and riffs that do not repeat, but instead expand into a massive web of chaotic glory. This is an album that rewards you each time you listen to it. I've genuinely played it five or six times this week and I am STILL hearing things I hadn't noticed previously.

Bass is there. It's audible, and it is just as manic and chaotic as the guitar work. I never have much to say about bass, but it quite satisfying the way it beefs up the low end on this album. For a first album, this one is fucking killer. It's just unbelievably good and it never, ever gets old or boring. This is an album you absolutely cannot miss if you appreciate death metal. Holy fuck. 96%.

Death metal certainly has its share of AC/DCs---that is to say, bands who seem to release the same album year after year. I can't think of too many bands who receive this accusation more than Deeds of Flesh (Bolt Thrower immediately comes to mind though). For the most part, the accusations are justified, and that can be either good or bad depending on who you are. I've been a Deeds fan for some time now, so it's obviously the former in my case. But for those who've only heard their recent work and weren't impressed, this may be for you.

Don't get me wrong; this debut has pretty much all the ingredients that would later define their sound: sinister, often atonal tremolo-picked riffing, sudden time and meter changes, and relentless blast beats with double bass footwork that never seems to let up (including that "triplet blast" beat they make frequent use of, found here on "Blasted"). But there are small differences. The guitar tone is perhaps a bit tinnier (probably because the mids are scooped as much as possible, in keeping with the traditions of brutal death metal), yet they compliment the music and definitely accentuates this disc's other unique traits.

The band also seem to pace themselves a little more here than on later efforts. Never ones to make heavy use of those Suffocation-ish breakdowns that many of their brutal peers seem to soil themselves over, trace amounts of them can still be heard in tracks such as "Hunting Humans", "Acid Troops", and "Deeds of Flesh." But whereas some bands seem to strategically plant them into many of their songs, they flow well within the context of the songwriting here.

Erik Landmark's vocals are of a fairly standard deep, guttural variety---enough so that you often can't decipher lyrics, but never to the point where he begins to sound more like a pig or cricket or whatever other animals some death metal bands tend to put behind the mic. You can also hear plenty instances of the dual high-low vocal parts they'd later come to employ frequently.

Perhaps the element that separates "Trading Pieces" from the rest of their later catalogue, however, is the song lengths. Most of the tunes here clock in at under 3 minutes, the only exceptions being "Carnivorous Ways" and "Acid Troops." Personally, I think that 2 or 3 minutes is just the right length for most death metal songs, especially with this particular style (Gorgasm is a prime example of this principle), and this may be where some of Deeds' later songwriting would fall short, as their last 3 albums contain virtually no songs under 4 minutes (Upon closer inspection, the only one is "This Macabre Fetish", at 3:58. HA!).

Deeds of Flesh aren't exactly reinventing the wheel, but that was never their goal. They have, however, managed to carve their own little niche of twisted, pummeling, blasting savagery within the brutal death metal field, and I would definitely place this among the best in the genre.