The Sanguinary Impetus, released in 2020, was another impressive foray into all things bottom-heavy and brutal and that path continues with this sucker.  Mainman Lille Gruber on drums returns with his stable of Jacob Schmidt on bass and Josh Welshman on vocals.  They welcome in new guitarist Vaughn Stoffey, to the fold, and the band is now ½ German and the other members are from the United States.  Unsure how that will work out touring-wise.

Suffice it to say the band rips into “Amputationsdrang”, a pretty short song and I love the opening aggressive gallop which then gives way to monster blasting from Lille.  Tight, as usual, and the bottom-heaviness of the guitars remain unchanged even with the new guitarist.  That is also attributed to the fact that Lille knows guitar and plays it as well as being the primary guitarist on their last album.  The man knows how to write death metal, but meaningful death metal.  Lots of brutal gutturals and rippin’ blast beats with Jacob’s prominent and impressive bass guitar skills always on full display.

“The Odour of Sanctity” is next on the list and has more technical madness happening with some monster stop-and-start riffing and excellent drum patterns.  The rhythm section truly shines on this song with the signature Defeated Sanity brutality stamped all over this.  There is quite a monster groove at the end of the song.  This moment is excruciatingly heavy and the band will get the crowd moving quickly with this song.

Interspersed along the way are a few longer songs with “Condemned to Vascular Famine” being the longest at six minutes.  Starting with technical jazz-infused drums and bass guitar plucking this intro gives way to monster blasting and super heavy guitars with killer gutturals.  The slow-down groove at the 1.27 moment is hopping!!  It has a NYDM groove style to it.  Truly heavy.  The blast beats return with the amazing bass plucking over the blasts – very impressive and excellent drum patterns in the middle of the song, as the technical and stop-and-start moments have a bit of polyrhythm to them.  The instrumentation on display is some of the best the band has ever done.  The crazy blast beats return with the song ending on an atmospheric note, reminding me of something off Testimony of the Ancients from Pestilence.

“Heredity Violated” ends the album as it starts off mid-paced and it is pretty damn brutal.  More technical wizardry and creative guitar moments before the blast beats tear into you.  There are some slow-down groove moments and lots of tempo shifts with this ending song, tying up the album in a nice brutal bow for all of us.

Chronicles of Lunacy is a well-produced album being able to capture the Defeated Sanity bottom-heavy tone without it sounding like a mess.  I have heard similar style bands unable to achieve good mixes and the albums sounding like a sludge pile of crap, never the case with Defeated Sanity.  The band knows their style of brutal technical death metal to a T and chalk Chronicles of Lunacy to another bone-breaking release from veterans of the brutal scene.

Josh Welshman is their new vocalist and if you enjoyed Defeated Sanity’s past brutal guttural vocalists then you will no doubt like Josh’s style. Lille Gruber-the band’s brainchild blasts away on drums and plays guitar, while Jacob Schmidt plays the bass guitar out of his mind.

9 songs in 33 minutes and “Phytodigestion” starts off the album, and I was recently telling Lille, the opening drum beat I was like what on earth is happening here? Simple snare hit until Lille does some monster drum rolls and the music slowly erupts into a pit-inducing, seizure-filled slam, then right into a blast beat and then back into the sludgy heavy breakdown that Defeated Sanity has trademarked, all the while Josh is putrefying us with his guttural vocals. Nice little guitar solo ditty, back to the heavy sludgy death metal, then more blasts and the mid-paced parts that alternate between this pace and blasts is on point.

“Conceived Through Savagery” starts with almost a vintage Cannibal Corpse-Barnes era mid-paced speed, before more blasting erupts and some intricate guitar work. Not melodic, but not devoid of melody either. Isolated guitar riff, then the drums coming in and right into a blast is the proverbial Holy Shit moment. More sludgy heaviness and Josh letting out a rather nice growl that knocked your ham sandwich right outta your mouth. The blast beats are super tight and Lille continues to show his technical prowess while Jacob’s bass guitar, as always, is prominent in the mix-as well as it should. He is one of the finest bass strummers in all of brutal death metal-in my top 5 for sure.

“Drivelling Putrefaction” is a longer than usual song for Defeated Sanity at over 6 minutes the slow burn of the music eventually gets louder and some excellent 90’s era pinch harmonics slicing and dicing all over the place. Right into the blast with a ripping guitar riff and bass plucking knocking your animals all over the room in a swirling display of tornado madness. The sludgy breakdown returns and again is so damn heavy you may mess your pants. Some creative drumming with cymbals and then the slowdown is more of the technical side of things, which Defeated Sanity have continued to incorporate on each release. Intricate and almost poly-rhythmic in nature, before the slow down then into the blast. Very cool part as the guitar is picking slowly over the blast beats-very catchy and not something you hear all the time in brutal death metal. Some guitar solos erupt and then back to the heavy break and then even slower. At this part you’d better be ripping up the floorboards.

The Sanguinary Impetus is an excellent Defeated Sanity album. The production is a tad rawer/lower than past releases, but the overall production is still very good. The mix is fantastic as it captures all the intricate technicality and heaviness of the band. They no doubt have crafted this sound over the years and no one does sludgy, bottom-end heaviness quite like Defeated Sanity. The red album cover showing the monkey morphing ties in with the lyrical concept of the album-so read those lyrics. There are lots of various packages on Willowtip Records to choose from and get one for your self and maybe your mother too. If you have not liked their FB page then do so immediately because Defeated Sanity continue onward showing the death metal community that they are leaders and not followers. Buy or Burn in Hell!

Where Passages gave us a hybrid creature combining slamming brutality and musical finesse, this dual e.p. splits that entity apart into two unique and distilled forces: one representing the summation of all earthly horror, the other spiritual depravity.  Disposal Of The Dead and Dharmata.  Each e.p. being so different from the other that an uninformed listener might figure them to be two different bands entirely.  Disposal Of The Dead is modern brutal death metal.  Dharmata is progressive reimagining of classic death metal.  From production to cover art nearly everything between these recordings is different.  Packaging them together seemed purely convenient but each side of the gorge is connected by a single dilapidated suspension bridge. A common theme rooted in Hindu spiritualism and culture made conspicuous in the titles and lyrics.

DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD

The e.p. Begins with intro “Remotio Mortuorum”.  A monastic, vaguely eastern chamber drone that fades into a churning death metal warm up.  Don’t be alarmed by the electronic snare drum tone with that harsh wave cut-off.  It immediately caught my ear but it’s a sound exclusive to the intro.  The rest of the e.p. features a more cutting medium-high snare, and another that is somewhat dry and open.  Often an issue, if not an outright miss with brutal death metal, here the snare sits perfectly in the mix and is always clear even when Lille hits hyper blast.

“Suttee” is an archaic Hindu custom for which a widow voluntarily immolates herself either on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband, or shortly after his death.  A difficult to fathom ritual, as brutal as it is morbidly endearing. The song bearing this words meaning begins already in full blaze.  Crackling, straining snare blasts and guitars like smoldering human fat barrage the onlooking neighbors and family.  In short time the music slumps in exhaustion from having endured the horrific scene, the riffs barely mustering to shuffle onward until 2:13 where Christian Kuhn taps out one of few, short melodic flares that dot Disposal Of The Dead.  It’s a fitting analogy for Defeated Sanity, that they aren’t a band motivated by brutality for the sake of being over the top, but there is thoughtfulness behind the writing, even if it’s not immediately apparent, such as with Disposal Of The Dead.  The songs couldn’t be this impactful without the band closely engineering the structure.

Fundamentals folks.  Fundamentals.  Disposal Of The Dead is Defeated Sanity uncomplicating their sound and pushing all of the equalizer faders up to +100 bowel dropping, comically fictitious measurement of power output, like Marty Mcfly in the intro to Back To The Future.  It harks back to Chapters Of Repugnance but with a level of refinement rarely encountered in the genre of brutal death metal.  It’s as if the band went through a six-sigma black belt training program to produce music with the greatest impact from only their statistically strongest assets as a band.  Which all sounds sterile, and like what your upper middle class uncle talks about at family gatherings, until you play it and your vision blurs from the rumbling crematory blast furnace of “Into The Soil”.

The guitar’s are down-tuned to subterranean depths of heavy and the bass isn’t far below creating a combined effect not unlike the continuous wave of a jet engines sonic boom.  At other points the bass separates, buzzing above the guitars like a amphetamine jacked bumble bee.  Lille Gruber dives into your chest with concussive groupings of 8 snare blasts each and the skies split open until the song settles into a chugging groove.  It’s not complicated, just good song writing.  Disposal Of The Dead has been an energetic lesson in the laws of brutal death metal, but flare and the ascendant musical realm is near listeners.  Just on the other side of this septic, disease rich valley.  The indigenous people call it Dharmata.

DHARMATA

“Dharmata” is a sanskrit word with grasp-at-air meanings like “suchness”, “the way it is”, or “the absolute from which all proceeds”.  That last one offers just enough to draw from.  First in the sequence, Disposal Of The Dead gives you everything you could have expected and, in a way, buffers fans before the neck tweaking reaction from Dharmata’s progressive death metal reality check.  Disposal Of The Dead addresses the ugly side of Hindu religious culture, Dharmata the wonderment and mystery of divine enlightenment.  Lyrics for “The Mesmerizing Light” describe and ascendant experience for the believer. Meeting Hindu deities and the overwhelming effects of being in their presence.  The subject describes an encounter of both grand spiritual ascension and a level of fear.  Dharmata balances these two emotions throughout the five songs.  Aggressive passages blend with melodic, vaguely progressive, illuminations.  Each side entangled with the other, vying for dominance, but neither fully subduing the other.

Shortly into having introduced Dharmata to a friend he summarized with, “ You know, this is Cynic worship.  Focus without the robot vocals”.  Also without the female vocals.  I added that you could also reference Atheist.  He concurred.  You also can’t help but hear mid-period Death as the vocals are so dead on for Chuck Schuldiner’s style.   Even the bass tone has that same clean, mid-range buzz you can find on Individual Thought Pattern.  Dharmata falls into a sphere of the aforementioned bands but benefiting from condensed structuring, there is simply more going on per minute of song than any albums by the mentioned, and a modern production that allows every detail to be emphasized, like a temple built only of mirrors.

Dharmata dials up the progressive elements by increasing the infusion of technical jazz fusion, not without those light eastern touches of melody.  “Return To Samsara”  begins with a minute worth of feathery guitar and moseyed bass lines, smoothly building intensity until the vocals kick in at 1:20. The song downshifts into longer jazzy passages 2 more times over it’s eight and a half minute length.  Lille Gruber’s drumming is nimble as if his parts were recorded in a NASA aircraft high into ionosphere where the effects of gravity is less.  His flurry of strikes like the patterns of swarming firefly’s.  Credit is very much due to new vocalist Josh Welshman for nailing both styles between the e.p.’s.  Dharmata particularly, offers a  spotlight demonstration of guitarist Christian Kuhn’s masterful playing.  It’s not a  complete secret but it might’ve otherwise have taken the Passages Into Deformity bonus DVD to fully appreciate.

Having revisited the records for which I made comparison’s, Dharmata is a busy bee indeed.  It truly flutters and maneuvers with an energy not bound by the physical.  It’s the spirit of that burned wife in “Suttee”, transformed to light, traveling straight and true through the multiverse to be judged by Yama – god of death.  Will she move on from or return to samsara for another go through of the reincarnation cycle?   If Defeated Sanity is subject to the cycle of reincarnation they’re giving a hell of a time about it, coming back as a more evolutionary sophisticated creature with each album.  The production and mixing is impeccable for both e.p.’s, simultaneously playing up to their respective styles and accentuating their differences.  It’s August and I can say with certainty that Disposal Of The Dead / Dharmata will top my year end list.  In a genre that chases extremity, Defeated Sanity reach a new edge without a gore factor by bisecting itself into two complementary parts.  They split their stock to increase investment from the metal consuming public, and power in their music.  Analysts predict continued growth of the band through exciting, and disruptive new strategies.

The band comments:

“With Passages Into Deformity, fans can expect another quality release from Defeated Sanity. Without compromising the brutality of our sound, we have stepped it up in terms of the overall production. The album has a more old-school vibe to it, with a lot of early 90’s inspired riffs and slams, but we made it a point to not get away from the technical and progressive stuff as well. People can definitely expect the most balanced Defeated Sanity album yet.”

Passages Into Deformity was recorded at Soundlodge Studios in Germany. Guest vocalists on the album include Frank Rini (Internal Bleeding), AJ Magana (Ex-Defeated Sanity & Disgorge US), and Brian Forgue (Syphilic, Gutrot) with sound effects performed by Jon Engman (ex-Brodequin).

Tracklisting:

1. Initiation

2. Naraka

3. Verblendung

4. Lusting For Transcendence

5. The Purging

6. Verses Of Deformity

7. Perspectives

8. Frenzy

9. Martyrium

Following the template set by 2007’s watershed album, Psalms of the Moribund, Defeated Sanity deliver a Suffocation styled onslaught of palm muted and pinch harmonic savagery that shifts between squealing blast beats and chugging, thunderous grooves all layered with über low, sick vocals. While Defeated Sanity aren’t trying to change brutal death metal, they are certainly ensuring their place in its upper hierarchy with nine repugnant chapters that are perfectly rendered examples of the genre.

With only Pathology’s Legacy of the Ancients as the only real competition for summers most broodle slam fest, Defeated Sanity wins by a landslide of blood, vomit and shit. Chapters of Repugnance simply crushes, not only by virtue of the myriad of vile grooves, but a ridiculously bottom heavy production. As evidenced by stupidly heavy opener “Introitus”, the production heralds 31-minutes of pure brutality. Nothing so complex or technical as Fleshgod Apocalypse or Decrepit Birth, and not a whiff or ‘core’. Instead, a shamelessly genre-riffic display of unadulterated death metal as it should be: As it was in the 90s where titles like “Carnal Deliverance”, “Blissfully Exsanguinated” and “Calculated Barbarity” were acceptable commonplace and Hot Topic had not yet taken over malls and metal. This is pure, sonic, B-movie mayhem and even with the occasional jazzy bass run (“Consumed by Repugnance”, “Blissfully Exsanguinated”), Defeated Sanity are content to pummel you into a gibbering mess. The likes of “Salacious Affinity”, “Engulfed in Excruciation” and “Coerced into Idolatry” have slams that embarrass many of today’s kiddie bands and will make fecal matter voluntarily tumble from your asshole without you even knowing.

Ultimately though, there’s little development of difference from Psalms of the Moribund and some of the samples, while nice and disturbing, don’t really add much to the album. And when closer “Lurid Assimilation” rolls around, it all sounds slightly familiar, but its still a sickeningly satisfying slab of sonic gore.

The bands previous full length “Psalms of the Moribund” (2007, Grindthetic) is widely considered a modern day classic in the brutal/technical death metal genre. In 2008, Defeated Sanity toured the US and appeared at the Maryland Deathfest. Demo tracks from Defeated Sanity’s upcoming album can be heard at their Myspace page, http://www.myspace.com/defeatedsanity

DEFEATED SANITY’s live trek is divided into east and west coast shows, with the east leg featuring MUCOPUS and COPREMESIS from New York, and SEXCREMENT from Massachusetts. The west leg will feature DISMAL LAPSE, DIVARICATE, and MUCUS MEMBRANE, all hailing from California. The full schedule is shaping up as follows:

East Coast Tour – with MUCOPUS, SEXCREMENT, COPREMESIS
May 20 – Boston, MA – Great Scott (w/DYSENTERY)
May 21 – New York City, NY – Club Midway (w/MALIGNANCY)
May 22 – Philadelphia, PA – The Manhattan Room (w/INSATANITY)
May 24 – Baltimore, MD – Sonar (Maryland Deathfest)

West Coast Tour – with DISMAL LAPSE, DIVARICATE, MUCUS MEMBRANE
May 29 – Las Vegas, NV – venue tba (w/GUTTURAL SECRETE)
May 30 – Albuquerque, NM – The Compound (Gathering of the Sick Festival)
May 31 – El Paso, TX – Chics
Jun. 01 – Phoenix, AZ – Metal Devastation
Jun. 02 – San Diego, CA – tbc *
Jun. 03 – City of Industry (LA), CA – AWS Arena *
Jun. 04 – Ventura, CA – tbc (w/INHERIT DISEASE) *
Jun. 05 – Santa Cruz, CA – Project 418 (w/FLESH CONSUMED) *
Jun. 06 – Sacramento, CA – tbc
Jun. 07 – Berkeley, CA – 924 Gilman (w/INHERIT DISEASE)

* No DISMAL LAPSE

The band has recently posted the song “Salacious Affinity” from their self-produced “Promo 2007” at the following location:
http://www.myspace.com/defeatedsanity

DEFEATED SANITY’s crushing sophomore album “Psalms Of The Moribund” was released in 2007 via UK-label Grindethic Records and was voted “Top Metal Album of 2007” by the SMN Deathmetal Forum community.

A tour poster can be viewed below:
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3707/defeatedsanityeastcoastai2.gif
For more information, visit:
http://www.myspace.com/defeatedsanity
http://www.grindethic.co.uk

With ultra deep, almost grindcore core styled burps layered over complex yet savage riffs, Defeated Sanity, unlike some of their US peers, do manage to throw in some nice grooves and lurches amid the blasting carnage (i.e. “Hideously Disembodied”, Butchered Identity”), hence the Suffocation and Devourment comparisons, but otherwise, Psalms of the Moribund is a pretty breakneck assault of squealing, pinch harmonics and ravenous blast beats (“Engorged With Humiliation”, “Arousal Through Punishment”, “Artifacts of Punishment”). It’s not going to change death metal as it isn’t a true ‘technical’ death metal album per say, and the vocals are utterly monotone, but as far as mixing earthy slabs of groove with a more complex voracity, much like country mates Despondency, Defeated Sanity have the balance just right.

Production wise, things are decent, not great and there’s a primal, early 90’s muddiness to the guitar tone, but the drums are a bit ‘clicky’ (not nearly as bad as say, Disavowed ) so the two colliding makes for a unstable overall sound, but otherwise, based on the music alone, Psalms of the Moribund is a solid entry into the genre that should satiate most fans of deviant death metal.