### Defeated Sanity: Chapters of repugnance

#### 17/08/10 || The Duff

I owe bands like Decrepit Birth and Disgorge a sincerest of apologies: as close to infallible I am a human being, brutal death has been shunned by myself for many years, the production being the mainstay to my abstinence in pursuing such a sub-genre. In becoming engrossed in Defeated Sanity’s “Psalms of the Moribund”, even with far from the most hospitable of productions, I’ve come to understand the attraction, the virtue of patience when tackling such music: the more you persist, much like underproduced black metal or shaving your anus for a little reciprocated salad-tossing, the more rewarding the outcome. Enter Defeated Sanity’s newest effort, “Chapters of Repugnance”; new darlings of the underground, I wouldn’t be remiss stating these guys being head and shoulders over their influences (the aforementioned bands to name a couple, plus Deeds of Flesh, Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation, although not as great as these last referenced legends).

I shan’t lie and say the upgraded production (richer than on the last outing, but just as obliterating) hasn’t made me view this band in an entirely different light (and brutal death metal in general), but “Chapters of Repugnance” is a solid figurehead of death metal’s future, and on par with bands I would never have thought leveled by such an uncompromising style of music; bands such as Spawn of Possession, Anata and Gorod are having to take a step back in my adoration of tech death, despite how remorselessly the music is delivered – I haven’t taken this beast out for a week solid, a feat unheard of with this style of music: blunt-force castration, seriously forward-thinking arrangements and technical proficiency plastered every-fucking-where with the exception of Entombed-jizzfest, album unwind “Engulfed in Excruciation”.

When listening to album opener, all-instrumental “Introitus”, it’s tough not to think this to be one of few of death metal’s future routes; the way these riffs are written is of such a unique feel, blending chaos with finesse quite astutely, all coated in evil-shit-indeed – one can in such light, just about, comprehend the dissatisfaction over the vocals when it comes to the common music connoisseur (ex-Disgorge vocalist AJ Magana has replaced the pipes of Jen Staschel, and he is the final piece to an ensemble brimming with passion for its work). All in all, this effort is more comprehensible than its predecessor, smoother, but where I think “Chapters…” fails is that the breakdowns are all too similar, few as spectacular as those found on the band’s 2007 effort; the main elements separating the majority of them being the lead-up sections, i.e. drummer extraordinaire Lille Gruber’s (seriously insanely good skinsman) varying initiations to slamming that ass of yours into the dirt, and a pinch harmonic’s placing amidst the fray, and so some sections (chiefly at the beginning of the album) remain tough to discern from the rest of the album.

Because of this reason, “Chapters of Repugnance” doesn’t overtake their masterpiece “Psalms…”; after the opener, as much as “Carnal Deliverance” seems madly appreciated by fans, it isn’t until “Salacious Affinity” that we get a triage of outstanding tracks leveling “Psalms”-style completeness but, astoundingly and much to the album’s merit, with a greater sense of maturity in songcraft. Much in the DS manner, the three closers are brief, so overloading is definitely not an issue here, and the main breakdown riff of “Lurid Assimilation” bears some of the unusual characteristics off the album’s immediate predecessor. I also dare any fan of Entombed not to be mighty impressed with “Engulfed in Excruciation”, leaving “Chapters of Repugnance” one of the best of the year, but possibly falling short to the hopeful who’ve been waiting for it to drop since 2007.

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Willowtip Records
- Website: Defeated Sanity MySpace
- Band
- AJ Magana: vocals
- Christian Kuhn: guitars
- Jacob Schmidt: bass
- Lille Gruber: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Introitus
- 02. Consumed By Repugnance
- 03. Carnal Deliverance
- 04. Salacious Affinity
- 05. Engulfed In Excruciation
- 06. Coerced Into Idolatry
- 07. Blissfully Exsanguinated
- 08. Calculated Barbarity
- 09. Lurid Assimilation