Review Summary: A complete embarrassing.
Coming off the chaotic legacy of Bonded by Blood, one might expect Exodus to have learned at least one lesson: get a better production. After all, by the time Pleasures of the Flesh arrived in 1987, thrash metal had already proven that it could sound both brutal and professionally recorded.
Just look at what the genre was producing at the time. In 1986 alone, albums like Master of Puppets by Metallica, Reign in Blood by Slayer, and Peace Sells... but Who's Buying? by Megadeth had already set a new standard for how aggressive music could be captured in the studio. Even outside the thrash world, records like Somewhere in Time by Iron Maiden and Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses proved that heavy music in the mid-80s didn’t have to sound like it was recorded in a collapsing garage or under water.
By the way: this just proves how Martin Birch was a god. "Killers" sound waaay better than anything released by the Big 4 until the Black Album.
And yet somehow, Pleasures of the Flesh manages to sound almost as bad as Bonded by Blood. The difference, unfortunately, is that the debut at least had a collection of truly fantastic songs buried beneath that disastrous production and Paul Ballof's horrible vocals. Here, the production is still crap — but the songs themselves rarely rise above the level of generic thrash fillers. The riffs come and go without leaving much of an impression and the album rarely delivers the kind of explosive moments that made Bonded by Blood worth fighting through its sonic mess.
Which raises an uncomfortable question: how did Exodus manage to release another album with such mediocre production in 1987, at a time when the rest of the metal world had already figured out how to make heavy records sound powerful?
Maybe part of the answer lies in the band itself. Pleasures of the Flesh was the first Exodus album to feature Steve "Zetro" Souza after the departure — and later tragic death — of Paul Baloff. To me, Zetro is, without question, a far more competent vocalist. His vocals are an acquired taste — but so are Bobby Blitz's. So what? In theory, this should have been an upgrade.
Unfortunately, better vocals can’t fix weaker songwriting.
Where Bonded by Blood felt dangerous, unpredictable, and packed with riffs that could start a pit within seconds, Pleasures of the Flesh often feels like a band trying to recreate that same formula without quite finding the same spark. The riffs from Gary Holt are still fast and aggressive, but they are ordinary. Tracks blur together, tempos remain high but predictable, and the album rarely delivers the kind of moments that make you stop and think, “This kicks some serious ass.”
I tried many times to listen to this album and find something hidden — to have a eureka moment or something like that. But no. Nothing here. Maybe a few moments in Brain Dead and the intro of the title track. And that’s all.
And you know what’s even worse? Like I said before, this album was released during a period when the genre was producing absolute masterpieces. So, when your contemporaries are releasing records like Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, and Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, Pleasures of the Flesh feels like an embarrassment.
For a band that helped define the Bay Area thrash scene, this should have been the moment to prove they could stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants. Instead, Pleasures of the Flesh mostly proves that even pioneers can fall a step behind.
