Matriphagy

I sorta see Despondency as Defeated Sanity's neglected younger brother. The main difference is they invert their older sibling band's formula; whereas Defeated Sanity are a skronky, technical blur of sound sort of band with a modest serving of slams on the side, Despondency are primarily a muscular, slammy brutal death metal band with an appetizer bowl of technical stuff on the side. It's honestly a much more entertaining and approachable balance, so it's a bit surprising to me they never got anywhere near the same following as Defeated Sanity. Having produced a grand total of three albums in the span of about 25 years might have something to do with it, but whatever.

Considering their slight discography, it shouldn't hurt to spend a couple sentences catching people up. God on Acid is of course a definitive German brutal death metal release, sort of an austere teutonic take on groovy New York and Texas BDM. The followup Revelation IV saw the band branch out a bit from their knuckle-dragging post-Devourment roots into a more nuanced and atmospheric sound, colored by some light influences from Suffocation, later era Disgorge, and (yes) Defeated Sanity. Now being one of three albums rather than one of two, we can now safely consider it the odd duck out in the discography.

On this album the goal seems to be applying what the band learned on their more ambitious sophomore album to their original sound: they retain much of the gnarled rhythm guitar approach and willingness to incorporate some dark chromatic melody in Revelation IV, but are overall returning to the more tightly coiled, percussive and violent approach of God on Acid. Even the vocals drive this home by abandoning the somewhat strange vocal style Konstantin experimented with on Revelation IV (which pretty much sounded like he was hocking a loogie through the entire album, to be honest) and returning to the more wormy and textured traditional brutal death metal squeals and chirps of the debut.

That loud, dry sounding drum sound that ripped out of the mix in Revelation IV is also tweaked. On Matriphagy we get the most natural snare drum sound of the band's career, rather pingy and wet, which suits the skittery, loose, heavily accented feel of the drumming. Hoffman's playing is very finessey but tasteful--he stays out of the way when he needs to, throws in jazzy fills where they're warranted, and mixes it up with some offbeat, octopus-like patterns when the tempo slows to a crawl. I'd be shocked if he hasn't listened to None So Vile hundreds of times.

Dialing things back to some midway point between two previous release can risk resulting in an album that feels compromised, feels like a calculated cynical attempt at "splitting the difference," etc, but thankfully it doesn't here. Matriphagy feels like a natural, confident direct sequel to God on Acid that should have come out in the mid 2000s, but somehow didn't. But the eerie chromaticism they've retained from their second album does give the whole thing a stark, grotesque atmosphere that can't be mistaken for pure slam, despite the ubiquity of slow/midpaced chugging. In a way it's like a throwback to the deeply unfun (in a good way) vibe of mid 2000s United Guttural and Unique Leader stuff, which was very breakdown-oriented but tended toward sounding willfully blasphemous and ugly more than moshable--Disgorge, Condemned, Brodequin, etc. Brutal death metal that's actually unpleasant in 2024, how about that? Quite an anachronism.

By the way, it's really heavy. You usually don't hear this much pumping sub-bass and general bottom end depth in a metal album, other than stuff by Electric Wizard or Sunn O))) or some shit. Blasty brutal death metal in particular will typically intentionally go for a bass-shy approach so the intricacies of the riffs aren't muddled. Still, a very transparent mix keeps the album from devolving into incomprehensible flatulence.

In a genre where so many albums are thinly disguised excuses to tour, there's something to be said for a band willing to pop up only when they have something legitimately great to release, and then fuck off for 10 or 15 years. I mean who else does that? Quality over quantity, I love it. Hopefully they got another good one in them in the 2030s/2040s, if earth is still around at that point.