Defeated Sanity‘s ‘Chronicles of Lunacy’: A Masterclass in Brutal Death Metal

There is a natural progression of every metalhead as they navigate through the plethora of subgenres, microgenres, and nano genres of metal. Each of these slices of the genre has its own tropes, many of which will resonate more or less with different audiences. Furthermore, if one is exposed to a slice of metal outside of their own growth in the genre, it may feel jarring and off-putting. All of this is to say, that technical brutal death metal is a genre that has to be drip-fed to listeners at the right point of their metal journey, lest they not be shunned away by its extreme trappings forever. I remember listening to Obituary’s Slowly We Rot when I was in early middle school and being intrigued but largely scared off by how violent it was. If I had been introduced to the band later in my journey, I would have had a better first experience with the band and the genre.

So it will be for many people and Berlin’s Defeated Sanity. As it was with me. I briefly touched upon Defeated Sanity’s Psalm of the Moribund years ago and found it much too extreme for that stage of my extreme metal journey. Now that I have steeped myself in the brutal corners of death metal, I felt it was the perfect time to give Defeated Sanity another try. This time with their latest offering, their seventh studio record in an over twenty-year career, Chronicles of Lunacy.

This record is not for those who merely dabble with death metal.

This record is not for the faint of heart.

This record will challenge you.

If this is enough to reel you in, then Chronicles of Lunacy is less of a record and more of a traipse through a violent psyche. Nothing about this record is soft, rounded, or not filled to the brim with ferocity. The slower sections hit with the force of a blood-caked sledgehammer. The faster sections feel like a chainsaw laced with barbed wire. Opener “Amputationsdrang” is a showcase of everything Defeated Sanity has built with its carnivorous career. There is no preamble here, no length introduction, no pretense of profundity. “The Odour of Sanctity” is the band as its creative finest. The single is singularly aggressive and breathtaking in its ferocity. Sometimes you have to sit back and gaze with awe at just how nasty tracks like “Extrinsically Enraged” are. Leaning in equal measures into the off-kilter time signatures of the progressive side of death metal, and rebalancing the scales with straight-laced brutality, the songs come off as simultaneously chaotic and well-crafted.

The lumbering sections in “Accelerating the Rot” and the aptly named “Temporal Disintegration” provide the much-needed pace-change to provide some misguided sanctuary before the band drags you right back into the mire. The slower chuggier sections, lean into their slam sensibilities, much akin to other bands that rely on that trope to carve out the genre. Defeated Sanity, in contrast, merely uses it as another songwriting tool to punctuate more intricate arrangements. The band leans harder into their proggier more dissonant sensibilities in the latter half of the record with tracks having nods to bands like Artificial Brain, Cephalic Carnage, Cryptopsy, Disgorge, etc. The slammier breakdowns in “Condemned to Vascular Famine” have a surprisingly modern groove to it, and sections on closer “Heredity Violated” cheekily wink at the core kids and show the yuppy upstarts how to write superlative extreme metal without devolving into stereotypes.

The musicianship on display by every single member of the four-piece German juggernaut puts other extreme metal bands to shame. The fact that tracks and records so dense and layered can be spewed forth by four minds is a testament to their skill. New to the band is guitarist Vaughn Stoffey, he has monstrous shoes to fill by means of the late Wolfgang Teske who was seminal in creating the foundational sound on which the band would base their career. New-ish vocalist Josh Welshman returns to the mic for his gurgle-infused bile spew. While I am negatively biased against the monotonous “toilet bowl gurgle” that infests the slamming brutal death metal genre, Schmidt manages to bring enough heft to his vocal deliveries while sounding more aggressive and less comically cheesy. Obviously, it is nigh impossible to discern any of the lyrics to a significant degree, and that comes with the territory. The vocals add to the percussive tapestry and is yet another tool in the songwriting arsenal. One of the highlights of Defeated Sanity has always been its intricate bass work. Even in a genre as hard-geared towards viciousness, the bass lines have always cut through to show ample creativity. The lines written by bassist Jacob Schmidt are among the best the genre has to offer.

And then there’s drummer Lille Gruber. To call him a drummer is doing the man a disservice. The epitome of “f@#! it I’ll do it myself” of musicians, this guy is a cacophony of creativity. A devious mastermind behind the kit, he succeeds at doing what very few, if anyone have done in the brutal death metal space. He writes creatively distinct, and dare I say, fun, drumlines. In a genre so anchored in red-mist inducing chaos, Grube’s drumwork provides both the foundation stones to the beatings, while also providing nuance in his stickwork. His off-beat use of the snare drum goes past mere percussion into its own kind of songwriting, a near-melodic regime. It’s one of those facets of reviewing songwriting that is difficult to put into text, but even a brief description gives the listener exactly what was described. The backbone behind the band and sole original member, Defeated Sanity is Lille Gruber’s baby, and it is clear that he puts his heart and soul into writing the most intricate, brutal, and just plain wacky music. We need more savants like him in the scene.

The production on Chronicles of Lunacy comes with all the bells and whistles of technical brutal death metal. With the guitar mid-range dialed all the way to the depths of hell itself, the riffs drag you through the muck. However, the bass and the kick drums provide ample support to not mash the sound into an indiscernible mush. My tender sensibilities often wish that there was more clarity in the more intricate guitar sections of the tracks, merely to marvel at the songwriting, but that is my own failing as a lower-level BDM fanatic. What is truly special in any Defeated Sanity record, and continues on this record is the snare and cymbal duality. While many other BDM bands opt for a honky high-tuned snare to punctuate the gurgles, Defeated Sanity chooses the whip crack of the snare and the venomous hiss of the cymbals. In the masterful hands of Grube’s tenacity, the drums sound both sterilely robotic and maniacally human. If there is another band that walks this tightrope so well, I have yet to find them.

For the modern metal consumer like me, riffs and sections that stick with you much after the initial listener make a song, and record great. Defeated Sanity goes in a different direction. Admittedly, like most of the band’s catalog, Chronicles of Lunacy is less interested in creating memorable hooks, if such was possible in this genre, but more involved in grabbing you by the throat in its moment-to-moment ferocity.  It is a true feat of musicianship that every member in this band can memorize every riff, every arrangement, every section, so seemingly disparate, yet execute them in perfect synchronicity in a live setting, as they have proven time and time again that they are more than capable of doing.

One really does need a cigarette after listening to Chronicles of Lunacy.

Chronicles of Lunacy is a journey through meticulous insanity. Another stellar addition to the band’s already victorious catalog, Defeated Sanity continue to push at the very limit of what is achievable within the confines of the genre. A violent delight.