ALBUM OF THE DAY: DEEDS OF FLESH, TRADING PIECES

While I think of their later albums as he absolute epitome of dull, redundant, riff salad that puts me to sleep faster than an Ambien and a gin & tonic, Deeds’ 1996 LP Trading Pieces is one of the finest technical, brutal death metal albums ever recorded.The drummer for the excellent Cleveland death metal band Odious Sanction gave me a cassette dub of this at a show back in 1997 or so, and I’ve listened to it on the regular ever since.

It takes the familiar Suffocation formula that was ruthlessly abused by death metal bands in the 90s and hones it to absolute perfection, while making it several notches more brutal. I’m not saying they’re better than Suffo (that would be grounds for immediate execution #srsly), but I am saying they showed a generation of stagnant bands what the future of death metal should look like. It’s certainly a bit less accessible than Suffo, having shed the substantial amount of melody that Suffocation used (which nobody notices), but such is progress. With flawless production and clocking in at a mere thirty minutes, this album is a classic of 90s death metal that probably doesn’t get the credit it deserves — don’t be a poser, worship at the altar of Trading Pieces!!

-Sergeant D.