Defiled

There’s a fondly remembered yet still obscure Ohio based death metal band that is known by its title being synonymous with a well known Cannibal Corpse song. This is not that band, in part because of the nationality of the outfit, but also because the band boasts where they obtained their song title from, whereas the former didn’t make a fuss about it. But this Hungarian group of death mongering crazies go way beyond simply naming their band out of an iconic death metal act’s song, they come all but within striking distance of actually turning into them.

This is a classic, run of the mill death metal album that has all of the obligatory elements and really doesn’t pretend at trying to break any established mold. They are classified as having a grindcore element to their formula, but apart from maybe a slight familiarity established with 90s Napalm Death, there isn’t really much of anything that goes beyond conventional, gut slicing, maggot infested death metal with all the usual tales of chops and clobbers. Perhaps the only real deviation with this band’s American inspiration is the out and out lack of orthodox, thrash infused guitar soloing in the mode of Slayer that was a necessary characteristic not only of Cannibal Corpse, but all of the major players in early 90s death metal.

Truth be told, between the blazing riff work that mostly moves at warp speed and the all but perpetual blasting of the drums, this album basically sounds right in line with what has been in this band’s inspiration’s playbook since they took on Corpsegrinder as their point man. The vocals have that same gut heavy, wholly unintelligible yet rhythmically precise barking quality that goes with said package, and prove to be the band’s strong point. The weak point, obviously, is that this is so by-the-book that the highlights are when the band are also completely out of their element, ergo the weird atmospheric ditty “Harbinger” and the equally ambient trip through bizarre city that encompasses the last minute or so of “The Excrement Has Taken His Life”, which also happens to be the most intricate and memorable of what is a very formulaic group of songs.

The rule of thumb here is anyone who likes Cannibal Corpse and won’t miss the 80s thrash trappings that said band still carries to this day in the guitar solo department, will in turn like this album. Having said that, there isn’t a whole lot to separate this from a number of other imitators, some of them older and much closer to the original in the few aspects where this band has elected to depart from the orthodoxy a little. It sounds nice and nasty the first time through, but it loses steam upon repeated listens and ultimately lacks the staying power to truly stand toe to toe with their forefathers. Then again, it’s no small task trying to recreate the mayhem that redefined the meaning of the term revulsion in the early 90s.