Review: Feast Eternal – Prisons of Flesh
From the Vault Review: Feast Eternal – Prisons of Flesh
Anyone who’s been paying attention over the last decade or so to the death metal underground knows that there has been a massive surge of modern bands playing distinctly old-school death metal, taking their influences especially from bands such as Timeghoul, Incantation, Demilich, and Entombed (amongst many, many others). Bands like Blood Incantation, Tomb Mold, and Gatecreeper have almost broken into mainstream attention, and it seems that death metal has had something of a renaissance.
That said, it’s hard to find any Christian bands currently going for that OSDM-revivalist style, and you’ve got to go back a couple of decades to find something similar to what’s so en vogue these days (of course, there are exceptions, and I’ll get to those! Bloodcrown, I’m looking at you).
I’ve found that sound in Feast Eternal, a little-known death metal act from Michigan that formed in the wake of Mortification’s first album in 1991, making them one of the oldest Christian death metal acts around. However, despite their early inception, they didn’t release a demo until 1994 and their first album until 1999! But what an album it is.
Prisons of the Flesh Review
If you’ve found yourself really at home in the sounds peddled by much of the OSDM-revivalists, you’ll find a ton to enjoy on Prisons of the Flesh. Feast Eternal’s sound here echoes Immolation, Adramelech, early post-Reek of Putrefaction Carcass, and Inhabit-era Living Sacrifice, throwing elements from all those bands into a blender and spewing out some serious death metal carnage onto the listener’s eardrums.
The guitar work here is just as violent and continually shifting as the drum work, touching on melody without entering melodeath territory. Every single track on here is a beast, and the album’s raw yet clear production pretty much hits the sweet spot between murk and polish. Like Immolation, Feast Eternal’s core sound focuses in on a kind of controlled chaos element that feels like the listener’s ears are being hit from all sides at once. It never descends into being tech-death, nor into the full-on craziness of an early Cryptopsy record; instead, every instrument is just barely restrained enough to keep it all held together, but still is allowed to shred at maximum speed with maximum aggression. T.J. Humlinski’s roars are excellent—clear, furious, and commanding.
In terms of more recent sounds, Prisons of Flesh matches the mix of ferocity, dynamism, and brutality of Danish/Turkish OSDM band Hyperdontia, and if you’re a fan of that band’s work as of late (think Hideous Entity and Harvest of Malevolence), you’ll really dig this one; likewise, if you like the blackened element in the vocals similar to those heard on Bloodwork’s World Without End, Feast Eternal obliges on that count in a big way.
Themes and Lyrics
Feast Eternal’s focus on this one seems to be on this life as a vale of tears. Songs like “Of Service and Suffering” especially touch on this, but “Forgetting God” serves as a reminder of the passing nature of this life with its attendant sorrows. Like Antidemon and Bloodwork, Feast Eternal also aren’t afraid to confront the theme of suicide as fueled by a kind of self-deception in regard to one’s being rejected or forgotten by God (see “Into Eternity”). Lest we forget that this is indeed a death metal album, songs like “Ashes to Dust” and its lyrical descriptions of damnation (very Dantean, I might add) will remind the listener rather quickly. It’s an album that paints a pretty stark portrait of internal suffering, but also urges the listener on to hope and redemption in Christ.
Final Thoughts
Overall, this is yet another overlooked gem. Feast Eternal would go dark for some time with line-up changes before releasing their second album and going in a more melodic death metal direction (relatively speaking), but as it is, Prisons of Flesh remains a great example of how to mix brutality with a sense of structure. Worth your time if you can find a copy!
For Fans Of:
- Hyperdontia (later)
- Immolation
- Carcass (earlier)
- Living Sacrifice (Inhabit-era)
- Adramelech
- Mortification (early)
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