Review: Defeated Sanity Knock It Out of the Park Yet Again on Chronicles of Lunacy
There are some things that you just know are going to be great every single time, to the point where you might even start taking them for granted. Your favorite meal at a local restaurant, a nice cold refreshing beer at a good brewery, that go-to video game or movie that you like to put on when you’ve got some time to kill, a good book, or something as simple as throwing on an album from a band that you love. Everyone has (or at least deserves) something reliable that they know they can always turn to for a good serotonin boost when they need it, and for me, when it comes to absolute top tier brutal death metal, Defeated Sanity are one of those bands that don’t even require a second thought.
Their very name is synonymous with being at the top of their game. When someone says “Dude, have you heard the new Defeated Sanity album? It’s so good,” it would not be inappropriate to respond with “Yeah, no shit, did you also hear that the sky is blue?” Rude, perhaps, but the point remains just the same. These guys have made a career out of taking one of the most obnoxious styles of music ever conceived and turning it into a legitimate form of art that simply cannot be ignored or brushed aside. There’s technicality, and then there’s completely dismantling, dissecting, and reimagining what it is that makes a death metal song “fun to listen to”, and that is exactly what this band have excelled at for the past twenty years. They don’t just set the gold standard, they embody it.
So, where to start? As always, there’s a lot going on in the band’s newest offering Chronicles of Lunacy, and it can be very difficult to follow along with at first, but I find it’s best to not even try and simply let the wave of brutality wash over you and carry you wherever it sees fit, at least on your first listen. Don’t worry, the ride is well worth it. Comprehension can wait; for right now, the name of the game is simply appreciation.
If you’ve listened to Defeated Sanity before, then you know the drill, and since we’re talking about one of the most consistent bands in all of death metal, it pretty much goes without saying that this album is everything you want and expect it to be. If I were to sit here and break down all of the nuances and crazy little moments of unexpected flair that make up this album, I would end up writing the equivalent of a Stephen King novel and wouldn’t be finished until their next album came out, but suffice it to say, it is positively bursting at the seams with them. But, in the interest of fun and unabashed music geekdom, we can go through some of the highlight reel.
The beginning of the first song “Amputationsdrang” is straightforward enough… for about 20 seconds or so, before the savant that is Lille Gruber breaks into some spastic, jazzy, cymbal-heavy fills that seem like a stutter step before landing right back in the pocket as though nothing had happened. The man is a freak of nature in the most flattering way possible, propelling the entire band forward with laser focused precision and the kind of airtight technique that most drummers could only dream of. He is a drummer’s drummer, the kind of guy who leaves inspiration in his wake as naturally as others leave footprints in sand.
But then again, this band is much more than just a phenomenal drummer, even if he is one of the most highly original and shamelessly boundary-pushing drummers in the history of the genre. An individual is only as good as the team they surround themselves with, and the other members don’t just keep up with him but use his off-kilter beats and fills as a canvas to paint a picture that is as intricate as it is downright ugly. A shining example of this delicate interplay is the closing minute or so of the fourth track “Temporal Disintegration”, where Gruber and the equally gifted bassist Jacob Schmidt start dancing around each other in a sort of freeform jazz number that wouldn’t be out of place in a smoky inner city nightclub where everyone is wearing their Sunday best and sipping overpriced Manhattans.
That being said, we obviously all came here for head spinning, aneurysm-inducing death metal, and don’t you worry, there are more tendon-stretching riffs, highly infectious slams, and gutturals as low as the Mariana Trench than anyone would know what to do with. The first minute or so of “Accelerating the Rot” will blow your brain out of your skull like the bald guy from Scanners, and if that doesn’t do it, the ridiculously groovy slam that it all builds up to is sure to finish the job. That entire song might actually be the most technically demanding one on the entire album, and believe me, that is really saying something.
On the other side of the coin, the fifth track “Extrinsically Enraged” is certainly technical, but by their standards is significantly more groove-oriented and might actually be one of the most accessible tracks that they’ve ever written. If someone had never heard of Defeated Sanity before and wanted to check them out, I would show them that song and the penultimate track “Condemned to Vascular Famine”, which blends groove and technicality in a very satisfying way. It’s hard to describe, but of all the songs on Chronicles, I just feel like that one most effectively captures and summarizes the essence of who they are.
Look, honestly, you don’t need me to tell you that this album is sick, not to mention a strong contender for album of the year. We all knew it was going to be, because Defeated Sanity are incapable of doing otherwise. The unorthodox is their comfort zone. They thrive amongst the abstract, taking the familiar and pushing it to its absolute limit, and then breaking through barriers that nobody even knew were there and taking it even further. For those of us who aren’t classically trained musicians it can be challenging to follow along with at times, but that’s also not just part of its charm but the defining aspect of their personality.
It’s not just chaotic, self-indulgent “avant-garde” bullshit either; when all is said and done, despite how insane the music is, it still just boils down to rhythm. Find a sick beat that people can bob their heads along and dance to, and then stretch and twist and rearrange that fucker in every possible direction until you have something that is both unrecognizable and intimately familiar at the same time. It’s like hearing someone speak a language that you’ve never heard before, but somehow still comprehending everything that was said, or at least all of the important details. Defeated Sanity speak my language, and brother, they are downright poetic with it. God I fucking love this band.
Chronicles of Lunacy is available now via Season of Mist Records, order your copy here
