Never mind the somewhat goofy looking skeleton on the cover, Keitzer is born and bred for blitzkrieg violence. Their fifth full-length (and second for FDA Rekotz), Keitzer has cleaned up the rough around their edges by this point in their career and know full well how best to achieve their goals. The only question is whether or not you want to stand in their way.
The Last Defence is one of those albums where you need to take a breath before listening because it’s relentless from beginning to end. Think the panzer tank approach of Marduk coupled with the death/grind tactics of Misery Index and you’ve got a pretty good grasp on what Keitzer’s endgame is. There is nothing subtle or nuanced about their approach, but there’s no real need for it either. Jack-hammering out 14 songs in just over 37 minutes, there’s not a moment wasted. For the maniac sprint that it is, there is some quality groove on tracks like “Marching Forward to Victory” that nicely balances out more grind-tastic songs like “Exist to Destroy” quite nicely and give the album a more multi-dimensional approach than the usual death-grind-repeat variety.
You either love this type of album or loathe it, but there’s no doubt about the quality of the material at hand. This isn’t the type of album that’s going to sway people, but that’s not the purpose of The Last Defence. This is face-melting, neck-breaking, frantic death metal. Nothing more, nothing less.