“After what was arguably their career high point in the astonishingly brutal Disposal of the Dead side of their split with themselves, Defeated Sanity have returned to making a “normal” Defeated Sanity record on The Sanguinary Impetus. Normal is a relative term; Defeated Sanity sounds like nothing else.” Sanity’s defeat is our victory.
“Defeated Sanity have found their own unique mixture of the cerebral and the feral, which has propelled them headlong into the hearts, minds, and collections of many a death metal fan. No matter how complex their music gets, Defeated Sanity never loses sight of the fact that they play brutal death metal.” Sanity must be defeated!
“Death metal is not a subtle art. Brutal death metal doubly so. Brutal, technical… well you get the point. Unfathomable Ruination exemplify this dearth of subtlety in name but belie it in their music. Their sophomore effort, Finitude, stands as one of the decade’s most punishing yet memorable death metal albums, punctuating each of its songs with a constricting riff or winding lead that seared it instantly into the mind. A great deal of the album’s success came from the band’s shrewd dispensation of show-stoppers, always releasing just enough brilliance to keep the listener wanting more. Apparently unwilling to rest on their laurels, Enraged and Unbound lives up to its predecessor’s unpredictable brutality.” Ruination as hobby.
“Torture. As essential to death metal lyrics as it is to oppressive regimes the world over, the simple desire to exact pain has spawned countless obscene and horrific technologies. Strappado take their name from one in which the hands are tied behind the back and the victim is then suspended by them. There’s a lineage of bands out there named after torture devices that – as far as I know – starts with Iron Maiden, but Strappado are pretty far down the line from these forebears musically, instead acting as a sibling to the departed but influential Brodequin.” Welcome to the rack.
“Anyone who’s seen The Wire knows Baltimore can be a rough place, but on Memorial Day weekend every year, things get especially brutal. Hundreds of rabid metal fans from all over the world descend on ‘Charm City’ to participate in Maryland Deathfest, and the result is four days of moshing, headbanging, and partying like it’s 1989.” Death to all.
“Most people can’t, for one reason or another, split their talents and passions into two separate wholes. The pizza place near my home in Ontario makes good wings, but they’re not great enough to start up a separate wing business and succeed, so they just do both at once. Some folks are terrible salespeople, so they invite you over to their place to eat some pizza and have a “party” while they try to pitch you an energy drink-based pyramid scheme; the free pizza is supposed to make up for the fact that they couldn’t sell icewater in the Sahara Desert, I guess. Germany’s Defeated Sanity are not most people. They happen to like ultra-brutal death metal and the old Florida proggy death scene, so instead of just combining the two they up and did a split with themselves.” Schizoids are never alone.
Brutal death metal and I have never really seen eye to eye. This could either be blamed on the fact that far too many bands in the genre sound like The Pukey Cookie Monster playing to the soundtrack of a dishwasher; or I simply just don’t know enough about the music itself [Here at Angry Metal Guy, our Modus Operandi is to blame everyone else. Therefore, it’s the genre, not you. You’ll figure it out with time. – AMG]. German death metallers Defeated Sanity, however, have showcased some technicality in their previous sonic assaults, which I appreciate.
