Neanderthal

Awkward, impractical, sporadic: these are the members of Defect Designer…or perhaps just their songs, I can’t tell. For certain anyway, I’ve had this EP a fair few months and not made a lot of sense of it, dismissing it at first as one of those nonsense tech/grind/deliberate weirdo creations, then listening to it a bit more and realizing that it just has an attention disorder if compared to most extreme metal, and could still be liked by using most of the same criteria. Do bear in mind, however, that ‘Pigsty’ interprets the concept of “pig squeals” a little too literally…

The sonics of Neanderthal seem rooted more in death metal than actual grindcore, although the structuring and abruptness of the 7 brief songs owe something to both sides of the equation. Beneath the fast-changing bluster a vision of a band with some semblance of groove peeps out, noticeable from longest cut ‘Wrinkles’ as it settles to a single task for more than a few seconds, unlike minute-long opener ‘Neanderthal’. Mainly the rhythms refuse to play ball, jumping about all over the place and the leads not syncopating with the rest of the band as ‘Wrinkles’ comes to an end, even if a final melodeath riff seems oddly well-planned in the context. These Russians gone to Norway have trouble picking a favourite genre, that’s clear, with many songs throwing in little titbits from elsewhere, not least in terms of the jazzy bass noodling that can add more death metal feel during heavy blasting moments or interrupt the metallic features of other parts. I’m pretty sure that Neanderthal represents a shift in style from Defect Designer, although considering their previous release came out 7 years ago it does prove hard to judge accurately.

What I will say is that this works well as a short release and comfortably maintains my interest through 18 minutes. The instrumentalists all seem very capable of adding a million ideas to a song without succumbing to the tendency of piling idiocy on top of bizarreness, so that the flow of any single piece has some sense of logic to it, even if shifts and conclusions seem abrupt. The last piece ‘Time, Forward’ makes the most of the dynamic evolution of Defect Designer’s songs by extending a lead over most of the 3 minutes, maybe actually giving a greater sense of coherence than the several vocal styles. I’m not planning to spin Neanderthal all that often, since it feels quite hard work in places, but the creativity shown is admirable and I have a weird feeling that the EP would be good for forestalling dementia, like people say about doing sudoku with your left hand or whatever.