Germany's nastiest, heaviest death metal band returns for their fourth full-length, the third I've reviewed for MetalReviews. At over thirty-seven minutes in length, it's also their longest, the meatiest, the most inclined to stick around after administrating a severe beating just to get a few more blows in. Those already familiar to the band will know exactly what to expect, but newcomers will be quite blown away by Defeated Sanity's murky, murderous approach that fuses technicality with heaviness. It's especially interesting the week after Suffocation's latest, as the two band's approaches to what is essentially a very similar sound are fascinating. The New Yorkers are becoming slightly more fantasist with age, that digital cover art something you could happily show your parents/girlfriend/children without much repercussion. Defeated Sanity, however, are still very nasty and horrific as that cover art shows, a rotting, silently screaming skeleton being picked apart by a horde of similarly zombified hands... Disturbing, and a good taster for what you'll find when you listen to the music. Opening track and supposed 'intro' piece Initiation pulls no punches, being a flurry of riffs and grunts, almost grinding as it grinds into your ears, a 'core-y breakdown a mere pause before the guitars resume. And yes, the following Naraka may begin with pleasantly jazzy bass plucks, but the resulting storm of sound is about as heavy as death metal gets. New vocalist Konstantin Lühring has a dry, formless growl that fits the guitar tone perfectly and often fades into it like some awful biological experiment, straining to break free from the fleshly abomination he has been forced into becoming...

Those who noted the slight increase to the slam elements on the previous Chapters Of Repugnance will note them here too. The galloping violence of Verblendung has a real stop-start quality to it, but it doesn't detract from the experience of being assaulted by an angry zombie at very high speed. What really plays in the album's favour is that despite having this vibe to it - the same dangerous, nasty vibe Defeated Sanity have always excelled at - tracks are far from similar to each other. Believe me, when the furious jazzed-up rage of Lusting For Transcendence hits you, you'll know the difference, and that closing sample of some kind of meat being messily, noisily eaten is incredibly creepy. Each and every track impressively has something to recommend it, whether it's The Purging's more simplistic, hardcore-driven hammer-blows, ironically contrasted with the most jazzy bass-work on the album, or the nearly seven-minute-long Perspectives, using each second to pulverise and keep the listener pinned to the floor with its scaly, rotten foot. Martyrium, with its frantic, percussion-led jazzy breakdown, is a real highlight too, following fast on the heels of the well-named Frenzy, a short but sharp tirade of grunts and blasting that doesn't let up for a moment, but is far, far more than the sum of its parts. Passages Into Deformity as a whole is an impressive experience, bleak, dark and brutal. The added length gives the band room to breath, room to flex their limbs, without the added inconvenience of having to progress a sound that is perfectly happy dwelling in the damp, dank, darkness. Fortunately for Defeated Sanity, some of us like it that way...