Prelude to the Tragedy

Defeated Sanity is a very iconic band in death metal. Their style of barbaric yet technical/jazzy style of brutal death metal has gained them a lot of popularity. This band over the years has managed to release 7 studio full-lengths. With the band growing more tight and progressive as time goes on. And with this debut “Prelude to the Tragedy”, this is the band at their most straightforward as a tech death band. A much more aggressive style in the form of Disgorge and Suffocation.

This album is very blunt and to the point. The moment you hit play you're bashed repeatedly with obnoxious vocals and slams. You can tell right away how talented everyone is. The music is tight, precise, yet brutal as fuck. This isn’t one of those bland tech death bands that think constantly technicality makes their songs great. These songs are groovy, heavy, and technical yet very well-executed as well as written. This is probably the most straightforward and underrated album in the band's catalog.

Production wise it reminds me a lot of old-school death metal/tech death. The drums have a nice punch to them and work with a thinner tone. The vocals sound great and aren’t too upfront or too low. The bass is fantastic and has a transparent yet heavy tone. And the guitar tone has a very nasty crunch to them. Everything is powerful and sounds fantastic. The production kinda reminds me of early Suffocation and Disgorge.

The same can be said for the brutal guitar work. There are tons of fast and frantic riffs. Kinda in the vein of Disgorge, especially the way the riffs tend to crawl in a twisted manner. Slams are used cleverly and make things hella groovy. And of course, this album has those nasty slow-palm muted chuggy breakdowns. Which screams Suffocation. Some of this technical riffing even reminds me of Disincarnate at points almost. It’s got a great balance of brutality and technical ability. The rhythms are intricate and solos are used cleverly. Showcasing that this band can write hella tight and catchy songs.

The vocals on this album are very different when you look at newer albums by Defeated Sanity. The vocals aren’t as deep and as guttural as they were going to become. Markus Keller does a very Frank Mullen-like mid-ranged growl for the majority of this record. You get some raspier and more deeper gutturals here and there. But for the most part, he sticks in that mid-range register. And it sounds gnarly as hell. The vocals are more aligned with old-school death metal than brutal death. But that doesn’t make it bad by any means.

The drumming much like the riff work is very technical and brutal. Lille Gruber attacks those drums with precision and ruthlessness. His blast beats are fast and barbaric. The drums are written extremely well and have tons of great drum grooves Lille also pulls off some very tasty cymbal work and double bass brutality. So it isn’t just mindless blast beats. He knows how to work around the kit with great fills and turnovers.

This album is extremely underrated within Defeated Sanity’s catalog. It’s tons of great osdm riffs and flares, while also staying true to old-school brutal death metal. It’s got tight technical details and tons of interesting yet hooky riffs. You could tell this band was on the way to becoming one of the best bands in extreme metal. It’s not as complex as something like “Passages Into Deformity”. But it has its tight and complex moments. This album also gets thrashy at times.

Overall this is a great debut album. This band would only get better from here on out. And with this band's new single releasing tonight (or tomorrow depending on when this review gets posted). I decided to finally review some of this band's work. If you want old-school brutal death metal that’s extremely technical and progressive. Give this band a jam immediately.

FFO: Disgorge, Suffocation, Gorgasm, Disincarnate, Malignancy, Devourment, Severed Savior

Defeated Sanity’s first album is strong enough to be considered a solid brutal death metal release but it doesn’t portray the maximum capacity of the band in terms of composition or technicality in the execution. The precision displayed on the high speed blast beats is remarkable but lots of other bands have done the same before, Defeated Sanity’s distinctive element is how they manage to communicate this Dantesque amount of brutality in such a delightful way. Perhaps the only element in this record that you can trace to their nowadays sound is the drumming: relentless and brutal but so syncopated it ends up all refined, the use of the cymbals is very elegant and delicate in contrast to the contusive nature of the snare and the bass drums in extreme metal. The string work is ok for BDM standards but it’s nowhere near to the percussion in terms of creativity and innovation in this album.

Riffs are built upon fast melodies with an evil twist on the blast beat sections, but there are also “slamming” breakdowns. Slow, nice and heavy but nothing new or technically impressive. The tuning is not that low, probably tuned to C but not lower; this range contributes to the definition of the riffs and makes them memorable and more entertaining than a 7+ string wall of noise, for example. The bass guitar has a nice crunchy tone, most of the time it goes along with the guitars but when it separates as the lead instrument; it’s love at first sight. In some solos the slides are so neatly executed it sounds like a fretless bass and the chords are very appealing and strike when they suddenly appear.

The grunts are low and guttural in shape, linear in pitch. The vocalization isn’t very textured but it works for the genre because they are inhumanly deep. In general, the record is enjoyable and a nice 30 minute session of generic brutal death metal interpreted in an exceptional way by superb german musicians. The song structures featured here follow a traditional "intro-verse-chorus" formula and the atmospheres are built upon repetition, this characteristic gives coherence to the insane intensity of the music but if you want to hear something really groundbreaking you should study their further discography. Prelude to the Tragedy is not a bad album on it’s own, it’s simply not as spectacular as their most recent material.

Defeated Sanity is, by now, a household name in terms of brutal death metal. Their 2007 release Psalms of the Moribund was noticed by the general death metal public and critically acclaimed, and then followed up by 2010's equally brilliant Chapters of Repugnance, but the mystery of the debut remained (and apparently still remains judging by the review count compared to those previously mentioned records).

Who would have guessed that the monoliths of Psalms were preceded by energetic, if equally inane death metal? This record is simply unnecessary to be heard because of the total lackluster feel it has. The production is relatively hollow and devoid of any serious balls and does little to back the technical wizardry of Wolfgang Teske and Lille Gruber, and even eschews the bassist Tino Köhler altogether minus a few sparse segments of atmosphere or tremolo. Vocalist Markus Keller's sound dominates the majority of the sounds heard on this record, and his higher registered impression of Frank Mullen leaves much to be desired.

But on to the tunes themselves - they just lack that special "something". Totally unidentifiable and lacking any real impact, everything here just kind of happens. There is no distinct slam, no catchy hook, and the run of the mill-ness of the technical playing is just annoying rather than contributory to the intensity of the music. "Liquifying Cerebral Hemispheres" being the first obvious offender in so far that it sounds like a hodge-podge of riffs rather than the songs the band would find themselves writing. However, when the band does decide to just go for a classic tremolo break or a power chord heavy riff, they still pummel. See the first few riffs in "Tortured Existence" for evidence of the capabilities of the band being avoided for technical mayhem.

Wolfgang Teske's guitar playing is over the top technically speaking, but the arrangement of the riffing and lack of any standout moments - wait...is that a solo? A hooky riff or breakdown? Oh, well no it was just five seconds of slow power chord progressions and now we're back to straight eighth note lines and boredom for another 3 minutes. If only the production could have been more thunderous as to darken the atmosphere and perhaps create one at all, then the guitar sound might have been something other than just...existing in the sound space. If you were to even call these riffs enjoyable, then you must have only heard "Remnants of the Dead" and "Apocalypse of Filth" - the only two above average tunes with movements and passages rather than continuing eighth note progressions.

Lille Gruber's virtuosity is less noticeable on this album, where the drumming is more akin to standard death metal patterns with very little resemblance to the almost Neil Peart level of ingenuity featured on the following records. Every pattern is expected and every fill, though extremely well executed, is just boring. Despite having consistently good drum tones, it just doesn't add up. Unfortunately, I have to say the same of Köhler's bass work as it was the standard "follow the leader" style of bass playing and was inaudible save for a few pock marks they would have likely called solos.

Perhaps listening to Psalms and Chapters before ever hearing this album soured the taste for me. Perhaps hearing this album first would have totally ruined any prospect of good music to come from these twisted German death metallers, but even so we have to look at what is here - average music from the guitars to the vocals back to arrangement and production. Passable death metal.

Pros:

+ "Remnants of the Dead" and "Apocalypse of Filth" stand out as powerful death metal songs
+ Drum tone is good

Cons:

- Songwriting is lackluster
- Tendency to remain in the realm of wankery rather than technical flourish and pummeling ferocity
- Production leaves vocals front and center; the last place they needed to be
- The rare sight of an identifiable riff is quickly overshadowed by another mangled technical passage
- Lack of any sort of atmosphere or distinguishable characteristic in the sound space
- Rhythm section meanders and the bass presence is kept to a low

Alas, I cannot recommend this release for any reason other than to have a complete discography. Very standard death metal played by an accomplished guitarist and his average friends, produced by his just as unremarkable engineer. Support the band by buying other albums and merch, just avoid this if you can.

This album is quite different from Defeated Sanity's later works. While they would go on to play slam death metal, which was great, especially considering i'm not a slam fan. However, this release is more of a technical/brutal death metal album in the vein of Effigy-era Suffocation.

There's a lot of technical riffage played here, extremely downtuned and incredibly heavy. They're also quite fast, almost thrashy at parts. They're quite complex (not complex to the point of being absurdly unplayable except by only the most skilled musicians). There's a good amount of bass presence to keep the rhythm and supportthe drums as they blast away while also playing in some complex time signatures. The vocals are quite similar to Frank Mullen's growls, with some more raspy ones similar to those that back up John Gallagher's guttural bellow in Dying Fetus. Naturally, you can't make out any of the lyrics, but if you're reading this review, chances are that doesn't bother you.

There are a couple of solos to be found here, namely on the tracks "Horrid Decomposition" and "Remnants Of The Dead". Quite similar to those found on Suffo songs like Seeds of the Suffering, they're well played and great to hear amongst those crushing riffs and blast beats. A couple of technical breakdowns are heard as well, most notably on opening track "Liquifying Cerebral Hemispheres". They're a good alternative to the heavy fast riffs.

Overall, this is a speedy and intense tech/brutal death metal album for fans of Suffocation and similar bands. While this band would go on to become slam royalty, they began here, and therefore this is a must-have for any Defeated Sanity fan. Get this now.

Defeated Sanity's debut full length "Prelude..." is commonly considered their greatest work. Mainly because of the fact that the vocals are much less extreme than their later singer Jens. I, however, am not that simple-minded.

Before I give this album a stream of attacks I will start out with what I enjoyed about it. The music in itself, is very heavy, complex and most of all completely brutal. Heavy down tuned guitars, blasting complex drums, and wicked bass all seem to devastate the listener from start to finish. The riff changes are always sudden and drastic from tempo in other words they'll be shredding incomprehensibly fast and suddenly convert to a slam style breakdown. This style of playing, which was originally perfected by the Brutal Death Metal Gods Disgorge (American of course.) only serves to perfect an extreme metal bands playing.

But enough fan-boy praising, this album does has a major flaw. Markus Keller, while he is talented, is probably one of the most generic and unoriginal Brutal Death Metal vocalists mainly using the exact same style as Frank Mullen of the great deity's Suffocation. Frank Mullen is of course an extremely original, powerful and talented vocalist. But Markus Keller just seems to be another cheesy remake of his vocals. Another band who do this is Severed Savior which I always found annoying.

The music, which is very well written and otherwise an intense listen. Isn't exactly original or moving. It seems mainly to just recycle Disgorge riffs. Not to mention the fact that the performances, are a tad bit sloppy. Only a tad bit, I for one could never hope to play their material as well as they do.

The mixing and producing job wasn't very good either. It just seemed to be all the instruments every song no mix in volumes or tones. The song Remnants of the Deed does have a way of proving that Markus Keller is very talented and has the ability to be powerful and unique. But it is only the one song.

So after hearing this album for the twentieth time I've reached the verdict that this is a great album, but very unoriginal and passionless. I think the reason I enjoy it as much as I do is because it shows their evolution as musicians. From a generic "metal by numbers" Death Metal band to an extremely talented, brutal, original, passionate and most of all moving band. It is like watching a video of yourself taking your first steps in a way.

If you are looking for a legendary album with passion and originality look else-where, I would suggest their later full-length release "Psalms..." which, in my opinion, is the greatest death metal release since None So Vile. If you're looking for a solid performance and some heavy music. This is a must-have for you...After all, if it ain't broke don't fix it.