DIGGING STUFF UP: Defeated Sanity - 'Chronicles Of Lunacy'
Technical brutal death metal that isn't boring!
Defeated Sanity
’Chronicles Of Lunacy’
Season Of Mist (2024)
I know, I know, this feature is supposed to dig up old albums and this is only from late last year, but give me a break. I’m still on a little death metal high from the 13 Underrated double-header we did last month, or at least that’s the excuse I’m going with. See, doing those lists gave me a slightly different view on what I typically profess my tastes to be within this particular genre of music. Typically, I say that I’m always on the side of the beast, that I want my death metal delivered in an organic, sloppy, even rudimentary way. And though it is true that I don’t have much time for that coldly calculated, mathematical ultra-brutal stuff, no matter how amazing the musicality and instrument mastery on display might be, the fact is that several of them very fretboard-on-fire kind of technically proficient albums slipped into those lists. So I had a little mental exercise (i.e., I stared at the shelves of my record collection for a few minutes) to see which other bands of this kind I also loved, and my eyes stopped upon Defeated Sanity for a bit. Not only I knew I had liked at least a few of their past albums (it’s a 32 year old band with a very fertile back catalogue), especially 2013’s ‘Passages Into Deformity’ which is kickass and could actually have made it onto those 13 Underrated lists too, but I had seen their name around recently too. So yeah, they are on tour, erm, right now, they are actually coming to my country in a couple of weeks - including a passage through the unhallowed ground of Barroselas, where the legendary SWR festival takes place -, and they also have a new album I hadn’t listened to yet.
And I should have! ‘Chronicles Of Lunacy’ hits upon that delicate (likely the only time this adjective will be used to describe this band, mind you) balance between dazzling skill and chugging riffs that make you go “ugh!” and curve your mouth downwards. Sure, it’s full of “jazzy” passages, the stuff Lille Gruber (he who famously founded the band with his dad, guitarist Wolfgang Teske, sadly passed away in 2010) does on the drums will lead you to believe he has at least seven arms and four legs, all of them more talented than any of your own limbs, there’s tons of little mindblowing details like the way the guitars and the bass weave around each other as two dancing snakes trying to bite off each other’s heads, and the song structures are complex enough for you to risk serious injury if you try to headbang to the actual beat all the way through (just move your head independently of the music, is my suggestion). BUT, and this is the important but, it fucking rocks, man! It’s not just dudes playing a million notes a second because they can while nerds stare at the fretboard going like “oh, he missed one”. No, this is actual death metal with feeling, there’s dynamics, it goes Autopsy-slow sometimes and it’s great when it does, it’s cavernously ugly, it’s genuinely brutal without any of the artificial ways lesser bands try to achieve that, like with constant blastbeats or silly breakdowns. And of course everything sounds awesome because it was recorded with the great Colin Marston, so that’s all that needs to be said about that.
Come to think of it, you don’t even need to headbang at all to enjoy this, just sit perfectly still and let yourself be consumed by mindbending songs like ‘Temporal Disintegration’, which sounds exactly like what its title implies, as it rips into your perception of time and rhythm like a spectral entity tearing the fabric of reality asunder. Or the delightfully blasphemous ‘The Odour Of Sanctity’, which happens to have a rather brilliant video too. Check it out.
So yeah, I got to this record late, but I’m glad I did. You’ll be too. Now go get your ticket if you live in one of those countries on the tour poster.
‘Chronicles Of Lunacy’ is out via Season Of Mist.
Find Defeated Sanity on Bandcamp, Facebook and Instagram.
Want to help us and the bands we cover keep the lights on, and get an exclusive tote bag to show for it? Become a paid subscriber of TDM and we’ll send you one, free postage worldwide. Also, never miss a post again (‘cause you’ll get ‘em in your inbox) and access our subscriber only posts. You get a free trial if you want to test the waters first too. And of course you can just be a free subscriber forever, sans bag or subscriber only posts, but you’ll get the inbox action anyway. Your call. We love you all the same. Get on it:
My first Defeated Sanity record and an absolute banger