Ever on the conquest to fry extreme metal fans’ collective minds, the unique but always decidedly heavy sound of Defeated Sanity is one that comes with some anticipation and reverence. It’s rare that a band can make you want to have your head explode with bouts of technicality, be bludgeoned by sheer death metal riffage, and oddly want to dance a little bit of a jig during a massive breakdown. But such are the waters of Defeated Sanity, and Chronicles of Lunacy feels like there has been no relent from that seeming goal.
Chronicles of Lunacy is a lot to take in. But it comes in layers if you return to it. At first, there’s the uncompromising brutal death metal flavor that’s meant to overwhelm the senses and stir up whirlwinds of sonic chaos, just as opener “Amputationsdrang” effectively does. A battering of drums and guttural vocals cement the sheer abrasion factor. But one only needs to look at the technical bass playing and all out assault of intricate riffing on “Condemned to Vascular Famine” to see just how varied they can make their sound while keeping it intensely brutal overall, particularly as said track later takes in some mammoth sized grooves that are oddly uplifting in tone. A song like “Extrinsically Enraged” begins with some almost hook-y galloping riffs, to add to a factor that makes Defeated Sanity far more memorable than their peers when it comes to melding brutality, technicality, and dare it be said, some actual melodies. One thing is for sure, it’s a throttling assault when you hear a song like “Accelerating the Rot,” and you can get lost in it’s urgent grooves and riffing, helping of technical musicianship, and sheer fun factor.
Defeated Sanity continue to defend their title as a group that effortlessly blends elements from all across the death metal board and merge them into a cohesive and memorable beast. Chronicles of Lunacy is ferociously savage, but keeps the intelligence level high without making it sound pretentious or unnatural, and even sprinkling in enough melody so that it’s also not completely unapproachable. It’s a winning formula for a sound that’s uncompromisingly extreme.