### Defeatist: Sixth extinction

#### 15/04/10 || Wooderson

For your sake, I hope Defeatist doesn’t fall into the “nice review, don’t care about the band” statements which on occasion can be a plague on the GD forums. While you may not have heard of them, that’s no reason not to give them a shot. I’ll do my fucken best to try and coerce you into clicking on their MySpace link so you can hear what you’re missing.

Defeatist is made up of members from the almighty grind machine known as Kalibas and noise-core bastards Anodyne. While their former bands had more of a technical edge to them, Defeatist is more of a straightforward, Sunday afternoon dinner at your Grandma’s house kinda meal. That is, you know what’s for dinner before you even get there and it’s gonna be fucken awesome because it’s made by Grams. The same theory applies to “Sixth Extinction”, nothing too fancy but consistently high quality throughout.

With production duties supplied by Colin Martson (Dysrhythmia, Behold…The Arctopus, Krallice), “Sixth Extinction” is yet another notch in Colin’s belt of being associated with some seriously fine metal. I absofuckenlutely LOVE the sound here as it’s not too polished and not overly raw either. It’s an abrasive recording where the guitars take centre stage and Colin ensures that you are able to define every damn note produced within. Excellent work.

Aaron Nichols has been quoted as summing up Defeatist as “three cranky old dudes who spend their free time playing blast beats in a room that smells like a dead bum’s ass”. If that’s what it takes to craft some of the greatest grindcore riffs this side of “Utopia Banished” then by all means, continue to smell like shit and be pissed off because Aaron is the fucken man. From straight ahead grind riffs to a few discordant runs and even the occasional Kalibas leftover, Aaron’s playing leaves an impression on you – kinda like how a size 12 boot to the skull will have the same effect. Vocally, there are no grunts or growls to be found here, however; Aarron’s vocal style comes across as someone who is being fucken tortured. He delivers a snarling cascade of violence on each track and his vocals are a major player in making “Sixth Extinction” an early contender for grindcore release of the year.

The backbone, the bread and butter, the fucken meat and potatoes of Defeatist can be found with the combination of Joshua Scott’s low end structural support and the chaotic blast beats supplied in mass amounts by Joel Stallings. Stallings’ blasting is tight and aggressive and on the few occasions when they do slow it down, he’ll throw a nice fill at you just because he can. I have no second thoughts or reservations in stating that Joel Stallings could very well be one of the best grindcore drummers out there.

Song lengths range from just over 30 seconds to under 2 minutes and there isn’t a filler in the pack. While not reinventing the wheel, each abomination on “Sixth Extinction” has it’s own distinctiveness and this is due to the writing skill of the band. For those of you who think grindcore is playing at top speed with the same riffs on repeat, think again or better yet, spend $10 and pick this up for a true lesson in violence. Highly recommended!

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Willowtip
- Website: Defeatist MySpace
- Band
- Aaron Nichols: guitar, vocals
- Joshua Scott: bass
- Joel Stallings: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Heresy Delusion
- 02. Fall In Line
- 03. Dawn Of No Light
- 04. Malice Engine
- 05. Without Will
- 06. Death Holds Her Brood
- 07. Drained
- 08. Ways Of Weakness
- 09. Extinction Throne
- 10. Man’s Inhumanity To Man
- 11. Warning
- 12. Storm Of Silence
- 13. Petit Mort
- 14. Diseased Mind
- 15. Filth Procession
- 16. Falter
- 17. Supplicant
- 18. Stab Of Betrayal
- 19. Xtul