Dead – You’ll Never Know Pleasure… (25th Anniversary Remaster)
Dead – You’ll Never Know Pleasure… Until You’ve Tasted Pain (25th Anniversary Remaster)
XENOCORP Kvlt Series
Release Date: 10.12.21
Running Time: 48:09
Review by Dark Juan
10/10
This is the review that all of Ever Metal Towers has been dreading. They have dared to let me loose on Dead’s 25th anniversary reissue of “You’ll Never Know Pleasure…” If you don’t know who Dead are, well… you’re Dead to me! See what I did there?
It is well known that Dark Juan is a libertine of the first degree and has a special fascination with deflowering the sweet, innocent products of families with clergymen of all faiths at their heads. Especially for desecrating altars in the houses of the False Gods with them (in the case of Christians by lying the crucified Christ on the altar and letting their clits grind against his beard as they are defiled) and turning them onto the righteous path of The One Who Walks Backwards by the simple expedient of awakening their previously unknown tendencies to submission or domination, whatever their bent will be. Dark Juan does not discriminate in these matters, as long as there’s blood, screaming and an orgasm or three at the end of it. In fact, it is indeed a special pleasure to subvert the pious and the religious and awaken them to darker, more extreme pleasures than the body and blood of Christ and transubstantiation and all that bollocks. Combine this with the belief that Shaitan has rather more to do with what goes on on the Earth, and you can surely see the appeal of torturing people in the filthiest ways possible…
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Love (apparently, and somewhat contradicting the above statement) is also the law. Love under will. Satanists can be sometimes confused. It’s because of the laudanum and the constant orgies. You can get quite tired…
Cast your minds back, if you would be so kind, to 1995 if you’re old enough to. If you’re not, you’re in for a fucking surprise, ladies, gentlemen and gentlepersons, because all the way back in the mists of musical prehistory there was a sudden explosion in the popularity of really extreme Metal. Napalm Death had invented Grindcore. Carcass were the progenitors of Goregrind, Death Metal in the form of the Morrisound era and Deicide, Morbid Angel, Death and Autopsy were absolutely huge, and then in Germany something quite strange happened. Three young Germans took the Gore/Grind sound and decided in their infinite wisdom to write about kinky and unpleasant (to some, not I!) sexual deviancy, instead of cannibalism and slaughter and Satan. Yes, Dead invented Pornogrind and the young and frequently tumescent Dark Juan was fucking instantly SOLD!!! Dead were a formative and deeply worrying influence (the parents were particularly perturbed by “Delicious Taste Of Vaginal Excrements”) when I was 15, hence it is with a very large shit eating grin I am listening to this 25th anniversary reissue aged 47 and still being just as childish as I was then, and giggling like a madman. Mrs Dark Juan is not amused… I still have the original on vinyl somewhere in storage on my vast estates, I believe…
So what do Dead sound like, I heard literally no-one ask? Imagine “Reek Of Putrefaction” by Carcass, but with a production job that wasn’t done by a YTS trainee with zero competent supervision remotely from a different fucking city with equipment made of Lego, Marmite jars and bits of plywood, and lyrics that border on criminal levels of perverse sexual deviancy and completed by the same three levels of vocal styling that the Scouse grind pioneers employed to such notable effect – high pitched growling, deep-chested roaring and congested vomitory splurging. However, behind the frankly concerning sexual deviancy and the demented speed, there’s actually a fucking good band. The music is not unlike an unholy and very dirty coupling between Napalm Death (buzzing, homicidal bass and insane tempos) and Carcass (absolutely razor sharp, predatory riffing and complex arrangements) with a large thrash element (especially in the guitar solos) and the whole aural experience is not unlike being roughly penetrated up the chutney ferret with a 12 inch black ribbed knobbler. Sans lubrication. Or advance warning. There’s also a notable punk edge throughout the record, not least on ‘Highest Power’ and ‘Die When You Die’, being as they are both covers of the unique, deeply disturbed and shockingly coprophilic GG Allin. ‘Hey Baby, Why Don’t You Love Me?’ also apes punk icon Adam Ant in his “Dirk Wears White Sox” early days, and displays a sense of abstruse humour that is peculiarly German. Apart from that, the music is pretty standard Grind, with influences that indicate a love of Dying Fetus and Pig Destroyer as well as the aforementioned Scousers and Brummies.
The reissue is cleanly produced and remastered, without any of the woolliness of the original release, and it makes a change (also pioneered by Carcass) to hear lyrics delivered in an extreme fashion with clean enunciation. Every instrument is clearly and cleanly heard and even the drumming remains distinct, even during the hyperspeed passages. This is an added bonus, because the arrangements of the music are excellent and very competently performed. The sheer impishness of the band’s mental sense of humour comes through in the cheerful desire to shock on ‘XXL Cunt’ and in some the spoken word samples that start and finish songs, ‘Journey To Extasy’ (sic) amply demonstrating this with a woman begging to be fucked before being told that no-one wants to (in a most jocular fashion) before the band literally crashes in and levels the fucking place.
However, I am in a quandary, because this record is very much a creation of its time and ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT tie in with my politics regarding the rights of women, misogyny and equality (my views on these issues are well known and frequently trumpeted), especially with recent events surrounding a well-known UK pirate metal band’s WhatsApp messages. Therefore, I don’t know whether marks should be deducted for misogynistic pigheadedness, but then I remind myself that Dead are clearly just having a fucking laugh and are not being serious and sometimes I should get off my soapbox and just enjoy a band I took a great deal of pleasure in torturing my poor old mum and dad with when I was but a young bairn. They were just as worried about “Reek Of Putrefaction” to be fair and no-one ever accused Carcass of ACTUALLY microwaving babies or excreting mucopurulence for real did they?
Oh – I just remembered the headlines from a popular UK red top when “Reek” was released:
“BAN THIS SICK, SATANIC SEX RECORD NOW!!”
Nah, silly editor. Let’s use it as a soundtrack to the vile, cocaine fuelled perversions I am going to perpetrate upon your lovely daughters. And your wife. No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering. I’ve even warmed the electric cattle prod because it will be their first time.
Right, I’ve decided on that matter. I am disregarding it because it is a band trying to shock, in the classic manner, and not a bunch of women hating dickheads. That’s sorted that out then.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Das patentierte Dark Juan Blutspritzer-Bewertungssystem) thinks you should all be very very grateful indeed that half the shit I wanted to write on this review didn’t make it past my internal editor, because you would have all been traumatized (or horrifically turned on, as the case may be) and instead leaves the majority of the kink contained within my sewer-like cranium to your imaginations and Dead’s lyrics, while simultaneously awarding Dead 10/10 for what is a superb Grind album back from when Grindcore in all its forms was revolutionary and fucking exciting. Also, I quite like the Ever Metal team and wouldn’t want to scare them. Especially Sheri.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Rectal Punishment (Me? Or some other unaccounted for third party? Oh well, prostate massage for the win!)
02. Receive My Golden Shower (No. Point it over there and give your Johnson a good wash afterwards.)
03. Penicide (Otherwise known as a number of my ex-girlfriends.)
04. You’ll Never Know Pleasure… (If you’re a Puritan. Or from Salford.)
05. Highest Power (a googleplex?)
06. XXL Cunt (Otherwise known as a number of my ex-girlfriends.)
07. Delicious Taste of Vaginal Excrements (Especially good in a Vichysoisse.)
08. Body Fluids Are My Favorite Fetish (Which ones? I like precision. This is as bad as the pronoun game in films!)
09.Slaves to Abysmal Perversity (Otherwise known as a number of my ex-girlfriends.)
10. Thrusted to the Limit of All Delights (Otherwise known… I’ll stop now.)
11. Journey to Extasy (The grammar Nazi inside me right now is raging from my mental and grammatical equivalent of the Wolfsschanze.)
12. Die When You Die (No. I’m living forever and doing unspeakable things to your corpse.)
13. Hey Baby, Why Don’t You Love Me? (Because you’re so fundamentally unlovable, you freaky twat!)
14. Skin Deep Between Her Tights (Is this a paean to the skin of her creamy inner thighs beneath the nylon, or is the protagonist chewing his way through them to get to the sweet meat within, or is it a descriptive term? Enquiring minds want to know.)
15. Recognize: Spread Your Legs, Whore (Part 1) (Lazy)
16. Recognize: Spread Your Legs, Whore (Part 2) (Quasi-Industrial)
17. Recognize: Spread Your Legs, Whore (Part 3) (Droning.)
18. Recognize: Spread Your Legs, Whore (Part 4) (Repeated samples)
19. Recognize: Spread Your Legs, Whore (Part 5) (Eventually stop)
20. Recognize: Spread Your Legs, Whore (Part 6) (And there’s blessed silence.)
LINE-UP:
Dany Dead – Guitars & Vocals
Uwe Dead – Bass & Vocals
Peter Dead – Drums & Vocals
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of ‘Dark Juan’ and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
