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THE DEFILED
Daggers

Nuclear Blast (2013)
Rating: 7/10

London-based The Defiled have arrived with their second full-length album, Daggers. The band have gained a lot of attention since they hit the scene in 2008 with their EP 1888 and there is little doubt that Daggers will continue that momentum.

Taking their cues from the latest incarnation of metalcore, the band don clever-ish nicknames and dress themselves up to look like the bastard sons of Dani Filth and Bleeding Through’s Marta Peterson that “absolutely adore Uncle Scissorhands”. Fortunately for all of us, The Defiled’s music transcends their genre-bending image.

Daggers is all about the bouncy, beefy, chugging guitars, keyboards that fill the gaps and occasionally take the lead, big melodic choruses, and metalcore rhythms, all of which appear simultaneously in nearly every tune here. In a way it makes everything sound very similar, but in another way it keeps your head in their game because it’s quite enjoyable right from the grandiose opening of the no-nonsense beast ‘Sleeper’. They may look like Warped tour material, but they bite just a little harder and prove it immediately.

There are quite a few highlights here, provided you enjoy bands like Asking Alexandria, Bullet For My Valentine, Underoath and Motionless In White. ‘Porcelain’ has a little Linkin Park vibe to it, especially the vocals on the mammoth chorus that I find myself extremely drawn to. It’s got a little off-kilter flavour, an almost 90s grunge tinge to it that makes it stand out from the rest of the album on the verses. ‘Five Minutes’ is another moment that breaks from the norm. A metalcore ballad of sorts, it’s got an acoustic versus industrial thing going on but it’s the darker, groovier vocal that really sells me.

While I find myself gravitating towards the few tracks that defer from the norm, the norm here is pretty solid. ‘Infected’, ‘Saints And Sinners’ and ‘No Place Like Home’ are all really good songs that feature all of the above mentioned standards of the genre while boasting a much more passionate sound than many of their peers. Producer Jason Suecof (Trivium, DevilDriver, Motionless In White) was obviously a good choice for this band and really kept their passionate performance at the forefront of the sound.

Overall, this is a very good album, maybe even great if the current crop of metalcore bands are your favourites. The Defiled have a broad appeal that shines through on Daggers despite their clichéd presentation.

Mark Fisher

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