258 days till W:O:A 2023.
Defleshed - a death-thrash band from Sweden around guitarist Lars Löfven, bassist and vocalist Gustaf Jorde and drummer Matte Modin. Founded in 1991 by Lars Löfven, the band quickly made a name for themselves in the death-thrash genre and released five studio albums between 1996 and 2005. They disbanded in 2005 due to lack of inspiration. In 2021, after 16 years, the original line-up from 2005 came together again, initally with the goal to record only a couple of songs. The inspiration was back, the energy was high and Defleshed went for a full album: Grind over Matter.
The eponymous song is the second one on the album and with just under 3 minutes total it just overruns you. From the first second this song is insanely aggressive, super fast, super tight and pure energy.
Jorde's vocals are a mixture of death and thrash vocals, Modin is just blasting along on his drums and Löfven is delivering riff after riff.
The whole album features 11 tracks and lasts for 34 minutes. And I have to say, after listening to the album in its entirety, you are exhausted. There is no room here for you to catch your breath anywhere. There are no fillers, there are no melodies, there are no catchy choruses, no playful guitar solos. It is riff after riff after riff after riff accompanied by blastbeats and high speed vocals. The riffs are chuggy and thick and the production of the album sounds really good.
The songs are hard to tell apart when listening to them in a row because the riffing is very similar and you have no distinguishing melodies or choruses to latch on to. There is not much variety.
Two songs actually caught my ear and those are my favourites on this album: Behind Dead Eyes and Dear Devil.
Behind Dead Eyes is the slowest song on the album, I think. It is a bit slower and groovier than the others, while Dear Devil's lyrics actually had me laugh (...and please don't feed me bacon, I try to stay on diet).
So, I think Defleshed made very clear with this album that they can still deliver what they've been very known for 17 years ago. They play superb death-thrash and take no prisoners. They chug and blast their way through all the tracks and they do it very well.
For me personally, I don't mind melodies or more groovy sections or choruses. I found the album to be a bit repetitive and it didn't stay in my mind. If you are looking for a band and album though that offers you excellent machine gun chugs and blastbeats with high speed vocals and pure hatred, energy and intensity, then Defleshed is the perfect band for you. They might lack variety, but what they deliver, they deliver perfectly.
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