As clever as the title is by this veteran death metal act, there have been a number of other bands using it either as album titles or song titles as this release is the band’s first since 2005’s ‘Reclaim The Beat’. With the original line up more or less intact the Swedish act made its mark through a raft of top quality releases that steered clear of the usual buzz saw styling that dominated the country’s death metal scene and favoured a blended US/European approach that was cleaner, sharper and more technical than most of their compatriots. Indeed, the band’s 1996 and 1997 releases of ‘Abrah Kadavrah’ and ‘Under The Blade’ respectively are excellent albums and you should give them a listen if you haven’t heard them as they saw a band brimming with ingenuity.
Fast forward a couple of decades and this sixth album capitalises on newer production styles to unleash a battering and scything assault that kicks off with ‘Bent Out Of Shape’ where the expected intro sequencing was gratefully omitted, preferring to assail you like a runaway freight train. The blasted sections on the album really stand out, having a crisp punctuated deadliness I especially like, no blurring tepidness here. The title track follows and another aspect you notice is the vocal style which whilst your typical extreme toning has a slight harshness that black thrash has, melded to the guttural roars you’d expect. Comparatively I noted similarities to Legion Of The Damned, The Crown for the death metal and Carnal Forge and Thanatos for the thrash that materialises through the riffs and vocals to give you a reference point or two.
With all the songs clocking less than four minutes this is a tornadic powerhouse, rattling through at hyper velocity as ‘Heavy Haul’ proves. The detonating demolition has unmitigated ferocity at times typified by the warp speed nihilism on ‘Dear Devil’. As I’ve suggested there’s a thrash element to this release too, harking back to the bands early era and ‘Staring Blind’ amply verifies this despite the insane blasted forays that tend to govern the overall styling of the album.
I especially enjoyed the last three tracks on this album, starting with ‘Behind Dead Eyes’ where an atypical buzz saw riff thrusts forth that channels the tune down a death ‘n’ roll style similar to the likes of Carcass; it is catchy stuff and you’ll fail not to be hooked in by it as ‘Blastbeast’ follows (another title that has been used by other bands) and as expected it is an enraged animalistic tirade barely letting up for a second, but it is the influx of double kick that will claw you into its festering groove. Closing the album is ‘Last Nail In The Coffin’ and where a lot of death metal bands like to offer something a little different as their closer, Defleshed most certainly do not, as their thrashing exploits are exposed with homicidal glee through precision thrash riffing and slightly off kilter melodies that course through it concluding the album superbly.
Welcome back Defleshed, a fine new album from the Swedes; one that will put them firmly back on the global death metal map.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
Leave a Reply