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DEFILEMENTORY
The Dismal Ascension

Torture Music (2014)
Rating: 8.5/10

Having formed in Denmark back in 2008, death metal act Defilementory have finally gotten round to releasing debut full-length album The Dismal Ascension. It’s been four years since 2010 debut EP offering Gory Defilement, and with several line-up changes thankfully not affecting the grit and determination of the band, I’m pleased to say that this new 11-track offering lives up to my expectations.

The current line-up of Defilementory is vocalist / bassist Thomas Fischer (ex-Dreadlord), lead guitarist Simon Kannegaard, rhythm guitarist Lars Johansson (Abscission) and drummer Richardt Olsen (Abscission, Sylvatica).

So, after a brief intro the quartet launches into ‘Misanthropic Emancipation’, a bass-heavy juggernaut of chugging brutality supported by a bruising drum workout and those deep, guttural vocal belches. “A depressing vision, Barren fields,” growls Fischer. “As far as the eye reaches, Blackened cold earth, A lifeless globe,” he adds over a tirade of rattling bass and hidden extreme melody. This is very much extremely heavy but varied death metal influenced by masters such as Suffocation.

Whether it’s through the speedier breakdowns or the slower, moodier moments of guttural instinct, it makes for riveting listening, especially with its technical underparts and unexpectedly dark atmospherics. With ‘In Soullessness – Supremacy’, the band introduces itself with another gloomy chasm of tumbling drums and melancholic guitars before a speedy burst and then another unexpected twist and turn back to the mid-tempo before the real battering ram takes over.

Defilementory are a clever bunch that refuse to be tagged as a run of the mill generic death metal band, in spite of wearing their influences on their tattered, blood-stained sleeves. Gorguts spring to mind with the punishing technicality of ‘In Soullessness – Supremacy’ as harsh vocal nuances give way to a myriad of ever-changing structures comprised of staggering drum loops and flails fused with worming solos, but above all, this is a very heavy, crushing album rooted in strains of torment as the likes of ‘Endless Abjure’ looms over the horizon with its stark lyrics and slow, menacing grooves.

With the jarring complexity of ‘Despair’ Fischer speaks arrogantly of “cold calculation” amidst a sea of torturous whines and percussion that reduces the brain to mush with its jabbing technicality. And so the punishment continues as each track is laid out like some torturous expression of intelligence, swagger and gruelling labour frightening the senses with an array of quizzical shifts but accessible melodies, resulting in such gems as the frantic ‘The Horrid Reflection’ and the harrowing ‘Departure’.

As death metal vocalists go, Fischer is quite a monster and around him the arduous sounds of pain form to create one of the year’s best death metal albums.

Neil Arnold

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