Defiled – Horror Beyond Horror
Release Date: 20th September 2024
Label: Season of Mist
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal
FFO: Cryptopsy, Hate Eternal, Suffocation.
Review By: Jeff Finch
It’s hard to stand out in the world of death metal: stalwarts like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide have their legions of fans, and melodeath bands like The Black Dahlia Murder and Dark Tranquillity are still churning out excellent releases well into their respective careers, just to name a few. So, for a band to stick out in this genre is a feat in and of itself, however the question must be asked: is that always a good thing? Defiled kinda sorta answer that question with their newest slab of chaos Horror Beyond Horror.
Hailing from Tokyo, Japan, Defiled were brought into my sphere of listening by virtue of taking a chance on their last album because of the gnarly artwork: these guys love colors on their covers, so they are vibrant and noticeable. And after jamming that record, The Highest Level, I walked away with my head tilted to the side with a look of “what did I just hear?” Because these guys bring a unique style of death metal to the masses: equal parts Slayer and Morbid Angel, the band is full of insanely talented musicians. The constant time signature changes, the intense stop-start moments, and the transitions that are performed at such a high level that it’s almost impossible to catch all of them over the course of a song; they all pummel us at virtually every turn on each of these 14 tracks. By the time a new portion of a track is being performed, you’ve realized that the groove has shifted, and then they’ve already changed it up again, keeping listeners so off balance as to feel dizzy at points.
The tracks on this album are an exercise in pure chaos, the maelstrom made all the more intense by all these shifts in groove, those times when the drums are markedly faster than the riffs, baffling the mind but captivating the ears; the jaw-droppingly technical fills every few seconds, and the blast beat driven breaks that suddenly switch into simplistic, beefy riffs. Vocally, Defiled is Tom Araya meets death metal, at least that’s what went through my mind constantly. There’s a bit of a talk – sing method that also seems out of tempo with the rest of the band, just one more point at which the group is trying to confuse its listeners. The groovy breakdowns that keep the songs pushing forward are seemingly cancelled out by the jarring stop start shifts, technically sound though they may be.
These constant shifts pepper every single track so that by the time the album is only a few songs in, the listener has been pulled in so many directions that the changes are to be expected, except somehow the band manages to throw more disorder into the mix, rarely allowing a listener much time to latch onto a melody. Solos come out of nowhere, the band ferociously hammering us with blast beats one second and then literally the next second a solo has begun that has ended before it’s even begun, transitioning out into another mid-tempo riff fest. The slower delivery of the vocals in tandem with the frantic music feels fragmented at points but overall seems to work, the bands obvious talent making up for any feeling of disjointedness, as some of these shifts are reminiscent of Necrophagist, blast beats shifting into a mid-tempo groove back to a solo back to blast beats, the band actively trying to keep us off kilter and doing a wonderful job.
A great many of these tracks treat us to immediate chaos, keeping up that ‘music goes fast vocals go slow’ approach. It’s hard to get into a solid rhythm to headbang because the time signature and tempo shifts are so random that you don’t know what’s coming except you know to not expect it, but there is a switch up in Syndicate with about 1:30 left that is the closest they’ve come to something that could be headbanged to, a consistently beefy riff that wouldn’t be out of place on an 80s thrash album, triplet riffs with two-step drums making a listener finally want to mosh. The shifts are so spastic, but they are performed with impeccable precision, changes from thrash to noise rock hard to digest but very easy to appreciate. Double bass blasts, triplet riffs, random, spasmodic solos, thrash right out the gates, this band hasn’t met a style of metal they don’t like, at points reminiscent of System of a Down but mostly sticking to the “death metal Slayer” template. This is an exhausting listen; there’s not a lot to latch onto in terms of memorable riffs or moments, everything is so chaotic and off the wall, and for the fun of it, there’s what sounds like flamenco music to round out the final track of the album, a final “wtf” moment to send us off.
After listening and digesting multiple times, there’s not a lot to be said that hasn’t already been said above. Defiled is chaos, they are crazy, they are technically proficient, they are unique, and mostly they are captivating. There wasn’t a lot to grab onto with this record, as every track felt like an exercise in bewilderment, but the musicianship cannot be denied and the uniqueness cannot be diminished. Defiled is likely to bring the most disorganized, incoherent mess of a death metal album you’ll hear all year that you’ll actually enjoy.
(3.5 / 5)
