Deeds of Flesh

Biography :

Deeds of Flesh is a four-piece death metal band from Los Osos, California, USA. They were formed in 1993 by Jacoby Kingston, Erik Lindmark and Joey Heaslet and are still active. They founded their own label, Unique Leader Records, which has since become home to a number of other death metal bands from around the world. Deeds of Flesh has released seven albums, their most recent being Of What's To Come which was released in 2008.


History :

Brief history

Deeds of Flesh formed in 1993. They signed to Wild Rags Records and released their first EP, entitled Gradually Melted. They then moved labels to the now-defunct Repulse Records, and released their first full-length album, entitled Trading Pieces, in 1996.

Two years later, in 1998, they released a second album, entitled Inbreeding the Anthropophagi, on the same label, this time with Brad Palmer replacing Joey Heaslet on drums. After this album was recorded, guitarist Jim Tkacz joined the band. The band then lost their contract with the label and self-released a demo. After this, they decided to form their own label Unique Leader Records. All their subsequent records were released on this label. The band then released a DVD called Deeds of Flesh: Live In Montreal in 2005.

In 2007, founding member and bassist Jacoby Kingston announced he was leaving the band, due to lifestyle changes. He was replaced by Erlend Caspersen.

Tours

Deeds of Flesh has toured extensively over the past decade. After the release of Mark of the Legion, the band supported Monstrosity on the "Bloodletting North America Pt. II" Tour. A year later, in 2002, they would tour with Disgorge and Dutch death metallers Severe Torture and Disavowed on the Bloodletting North America Part III tour. The band also performed a number of shows with Cannibal Corpse.

2004 found the band touring with such widely-known American death metal acts as Dying Fetus and Hate Eternal. They also toured Australia with Tasmanian death metal group Psycroptic.

After sitting out much of 2005 due to injuries to Jacoby Kingston and Mike Hamilton, the band started touring again in 2006. They toured Europe alongside Monstrosity, Vile, and Impaled, then toured North America with Decrepit Birth, Vile, and Odious Mortem.

Musical style

Their music can be described as a basis of the merciless, take-no-prisoners technical and brutal death metal style pioneered by Suffocation coupled with a songwriting style that incorporates numerous time signature and/or tempo changes without warning in a single song, creating a disorienting atmosphere to the listener. The riffs themselves are atonal mixtures of fast tremolo picking, palm muted machine-gun lines, and breakdowns, all incorporating Deeds of Flesh's signature ferocity and unpredictability. The drum parts also change frequently, mirroring the constantly-shifting nature of the guitar lines. The vocals are a mixture of low growls and high screams. On former albums, the low vocals were performed by Lindmark and the high vocals by Kingston; however since Kingston's departure all vocals have been performed by Lindmark.

Prior to their 2009 release Of What's To Come, Deeds of Flesh never implemented guitar solos. However on this album there are many, performed by newest guitarist Sean Southern.

Their lyrics deal mostly with common death metal subjects such as death, murder, disease, and horror. However Of What's To Come was lyrically a concept album in a post-apocalyptic science fiction style.


Band Members :

Current Members :

* Erik Lindmark - Guitar, Vocals
* Sean Southern - Guitar
* Erlend Caspersen - Bass
* Mike Hamilton (formerly of Vile) - Drums

Former Members :

* Jared Deaver (formerly of Impaled)- Guitar
* Joey Heaslet - Drums
* Brad Palmer - Drums
* Jimmy Tkacz (formerly of Vile) - Guitar
* Derek Boyer - Bass
* Jacoby Kingston - Bass, vocals
* Roderick Williams-(formerly of Blasphemous)- Guitar


Discography :

* Deeds of Flesh - Gradually Melted (EP, 1995)
* Deeds of Flesh - Trading Pieces (1996)
* Deeds of Flesh - Inbreeding the Anthropophagi (1998)
* Deeds of Flesh - Path of the Weakening (1999)
* Deeds of Flesh - Mark of the Legion (2001)
* Deeds of Flesh - Reduced to Ashes (2003)
* Deeds of Flesh - Crown of Souls (2005)
* Deeds of Flesh - Live in Montreal (DVD, 2005)
* Deeds of Flesh - Of What's to Come (2008)