From the depths of Tokyo’s darkest alleys, DEFILED have emerged once again, claws sharpened, eyes bloodshot, ready to unleash a fresh dose of unadulterated savagery with their latest full-length studio album, Horror Beyond Horror. Marrying the grotesque with technical prowess, these samurais of sickness are poised to carve another notch into the archives of death metal’s sordid history.
Since crawling from the primordial soup of the underground scene in the early ’90s, DEFILED have forged a path littered with broken souls. Their journey of destruction first sank its teeth into the international jugular with Erupted Wrath, mixed by the masterful Jim Morris in Tampa, Florida. This brutal assault opened gates to a global bloodletting, from levelling stages in South Korea to crushing skulls at the Milwaukee Metalfest, and not even the November to Dismember fest could foresee the carnage they’d bring.
Commandeering the technical tightrope between anarchy and precision, DEFILED evolved, much like an aberrant spawn isolated on the Galapagos, grotesque yet ultimately superior. Their subsequent onslaughts — Ugliness Revealed, Divination, and the sheer violence of In Crisis — built a monument to atrocity that ascends to new heights with Horror Beyond Horror.
Taking no prisoners in their three-decades-long campaign of terror, DEFILED have become the indestructible behemoth of Asia’s death metal scene, powered by the relentless engine of their old-school roots and the twisted wreckage of technical thrash and progressive rock innovation.
But enough with the history lesson, you came here for the carnage, didn’t you? Horror Beyond Horror is a 14-track massacre, riddled with riffs sharp enough to slit your throat and a rhythmic onslaught that’ll pulverize your pathetic bones. Each track, from the visceral “Smoke and Mirrors” to the haunting “To See Behind the Wall”, is a calculated strike, precision-engineered to leave no survivors. Let’s not forget the title track, which cements DEFILED’s legacy as harbingers of the apocalypse.
With a sound as raw as exposed nerve endings and as unrefined as a mass grave, DEFILED stands defiantly apart from the polished poseurs and shameless sellouts. They don’t peddle in cheap gimmickry or nostalgia; they deal in the currency of pure, unfiltered destruction. As they look out upon the charred landscape of the genre they’ve helped to define, DEFILED is not content to rest on their laurels. Horror Beyond Horror sees them, once again, ascending to the blood-soaked throne of death metal sovereignty.
