Defeated Sanity - Chapters of Repugnance

"The. Most. Brutal. Release. Of. 2010."  is the proclamation of the sticker on the front of Defeated Sanity's latest, Chapters of Repugnance.  It's a rather bold statement for Willowtip to make with eight months still left in the year and with Hour of Penance's Paradogma already on the shelves.  But fans of Disgorge, Pathology, and Decrepit Birth's ...And Time Begins just might agree.

Germany's Defeated Sanity (Yes little Bieber, there is a country called "Germany.") has already released a pair of solid brutal death metal albums during this decade.  Defeated Sanity's past albums have required some patience to fully absorb due to their complexity and the overwhelming wall of sound created by their blurry riffs and gurgled, indecipherable vocals.  Chapters of Repugnance takes these traits and cranks them up full blast.  In fact, this may be Defeated Sanity's most impenetrable album yet. 

Defeated Sanity has had a different vocalist on each one of its full-lengths.  Chapters of Repugnance continues that tradition.  Former Disgorge vocalist AJ Magana has taken over vocal duties.  (He appears on Disgorge's Consume the Forsaken.)  His vocals are not too different from previous Defeated Sanity vomit gurglers.  His monotonous growling may be one of the main aspects that will keep some people from liking this album.  He never really changes "pitch" much except briefly on "Salacious Affinity."  This does not bother me personally since it is what I have come to expect from this band.  Tone-wise, Magana sounds like Suffocation's Frank Mullen at his most guttural and indecipherable.  It is difficult to follow the lyrics, even with the lyric sheet in hand, much like Lord Worm's performance on Cryptopsy's None So Vile.  The lyrics, if you choose to try to follow along, are grotesque with a sense of unsettling realism.  Although they deal with the standard gory topics, you can tell that some thought was put into writing them.

Musically, Chapters of Repugnance varies among nearly indistinguishable blurs of blast beats coupled with fleet-fingered riffs, moments of well-honed technicality, and Suffocation-style chugging with a few jazzy fills thrown in for good measure.  Each of these qualities often appear within the same song. 

The guitar work is technical and precise, yet somehow messy and sludgy at the same time.  The chunky, complicated parts sound like they could have come from Pierced From Within.  Yet, other riffs fly by in a flurry of practically indistinct notes.  These bewildering guitar parts are usually paired with blasting drums, making them reminiscent of the most chaotic elements of early Cryptopsy.  Guitar solos do not play a very important role on this album.  In fact, the only true guitar solo is a brief spastic "Slayer solo" that doesn't show up until the final track.

The bass frequencies on Chapters of Repugnance are as thick as a Biggest Loser contestant.  While the bass guitar can be heard with relative ease, it makes its presence more obvious through floppy-stringed fills in both "Blissfully Exsanguinated" and the title track.  The bottom-heavy production actually helps the album overall.  The added thickness really beefs up Defeated Sanity's sound and is a noticeable improvement over their past releases.

The drums are all over the place with tempo changes, fills-a-plenty, and tasty accents on the bell of the ride cymbal.  The coolest aspect of the drumming is definitely the use of tempo shifts over the course of a song.  All of the instruments lock together throughout these tempo changes.  Sometimes these changes are abrupt and choppy, even stuttering. In other instances, a riff will gradually speed up while all of the instruments stay in synch like a flock of birds shifting in the wind, or a school of fish changing direction simultaneously.  These gradual shifts in speed are almost imperceptible unless you are listening closely.

There's not too much to differentiate the songs of Chapters of Repugnance on the first several listens.  While the album begins to approach being catchy on songs like "Engulfed in Excruciation," "Blissfully Exsanguinated," and "Calculated Barbarity," it never quite makes it there.  This release requires your undivided attention if you are going to truly get something deeper out of it.  On its surface, it's just a solid wall of death metal that you could play as background music and nothing more.  If you take the time to really focus on the songs with no distractions, you will discover a multitude of things to enjoy about it.  The complex riffs will rise higher out of the sonic muck with each listen.  Parts will begin to stick in your memory piece by piece.  It takes a while to figure out what's going on, and that's what makes Chapters of Repugnance so enjoyable. 

Is this the most brutal album of 2010?  I suppose that depends on your definition of "brutal," but it's definitely a contender.  Whatever your definition, this is one kick-ass slab of death metal.  In fact, Chapters of  Repugnance may be the best album I've heard in this sub-subgenre of Disgorge-style ultra-brutality.  Defeated Sanity's latest is not for everyone.  In fact, it seems that it's mostly for the brutal death metal die-hards.  Luckily, the half-hour running length helps keep this oppressively dense album digestible for those who are willing to give it the necessary time it requires.  I know I'll be coming back for more soon.

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*Comments:

May 8, 2010

Reviewer: Roswell47

Release Date: May 4, 2010
Label: Willowtip

TRACK LISTING

1.  Introitus
2.  Consumed By Repugnance
3.  Carnal Deliverance
4.  Salacious Affinity
5.  Engulfed In Excruciation
6.  Coerced Into Idolatry
7.  Blissfully Exsanguinated
8.  Calculated Barbarity
9.  Lurid Assimilation

Total playing time:  31:56

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