Erupted Wrath

I don't want to go so far as to labeling Defiled a tech death metal band, but there's so much happening here that you might want to sit down to take it all in. You can state that most death metal isn't easy listening music, but in this case you can make that double.

At the base of Defiled's music are the more brutish death metal bands of the 90's, think of acts like Sinister, Morbid Angel, Deranged, Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse, with the band easily rivaling these names when it comes to intensity and execution, even topping them at times. In the guitar work there are traces present of the more intricate Death and Pestilence work, utilizing a squirming style of riffing to build up the tracks, keeping up a high level of technicality. During this album we get a downpour of blastbeats, gruff growling grunts, lots of breaks, crazy riffing, tempo changes and slower stomp, all huddled together in a collection of songs brought with nervous energy and twitchy intensity. It's certainly no music one will 'get' from the first go, because there's quite a lot happening in the song structures, while it's all getting delivered with high doses of energetic execution. The level of playing sometimes even touches on a kind of jazzy performance, noticeable in the virtuoso bass breaks, reminding me of Watchtower or Confessor even. The songs themselves combine a lot of different parts and breaks, with the tempo changing on the drop of a dime. So yeah, as I said earlier, this is no easy listening.

The production is not bad, placing the guitar well up front, which is a smart choice for music that is as riff-based as this. There's a good bottom end to the sound, providing a sturdy base for the songs, and the vocals sound rough and gruff throughout, too bad that the percussion has a synthetic, processed edge to it. In its totality, it's a nice and solid soundmix that lends the right amount of power to the intricate music, while keeping things transparent enough to not lose grip on the hectic metal at play here.

It's one of those releases that requires a lot of spins for the quarter to drop, with that quarter never dropping at all being another option, of course. Speaking for myself, I like this album for its power and force, but the music can also feel like a bit much, because the listener gets barely any respite from the constant barrage of riffs, blasts and breaks that the band belts out. It's a good album for those into the more technical death metal bands out there, but if your taste is more basic, better check it out beforehand. This is quite the ride, you know.