Defiled : "the Highest Level"

When I saw this Japanese band has been around since 1992, I guess I expected more than just blatant Morbid Angel worship. However upon closer inspection I saw the guitarist is the only original member and most of the band got hired on in 2013. Their bassist in 2019, making it their second album together in this incarnation. The production could be better. Perhaps they are going with a rougher mix in order to feel more grind core Changing over to headphones helped with the mid ranged drum sounds. They are very straight forward in their machine like attack in a manner than reminds me of Deicide when it comes to the title track  .  I get English is their second language, so the lyrics come across like random words collected from the metal encyclopedia of the occult , with no real merit to their meaning, when it comes to the narrative assembled here. 

The riffs feel a little stiff on "Entrapped". They announce big brother is watching you, which finds them veering off more into issues in the world around them, and chugging with more of a thrash like feel. "Status Quo" feels more like a chaotic version of "Beneath the Remains" era Sepultura. They do branch out from the Morbid Angel sound they album opened with. There is a hint of crusty punk to the thrash touches of "Warmonger". There is not a great deal of thought put into the arrangement of "Demonization" . When all else fails pour on the speed is what many bands resort to, these guys at least try to avoid that, but lack the direction of where to go. The drummer fills the space with plenty of fills, when a groove might work better. 

There is an almost grind core Sepultura formula beginning to establish it self by the time we get to "Madness Accelerated" . There are times when a riff here or there comes about that might be evolved into a worthwhile song but it is rushed out of the way by the desperate fury that this album tries to run off of. They sometimes even stumbled into a cool riff that does groove, but the rule here is cool riffs alone does not a good song make, this album is a clear cut demonstration of what that is in place, as this album needs direction when it comes to the arrangements. The songs begin to blast by me, as my interest wanes during "the Last Straw". There are a few guitar solos that blazed by where I thought if I was into that kind of thing I might be impressed. Vocally things seem to try to go into more of an Obituary place as it progresses.  "Red World" is a pretty decent song, the problem, tends to be how the dry vocals are sitting in the front of the mix, and the guitars need a bigger sound.Not all the problems lie in production, but if they had more supervision in the studio some of the other issues might have been dialed back. I will give this one a 5.5  

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8.5