Gigan – Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]

By Maddog

Back in the early 2010s, Gigan wooed me with their lovably absurd album titles, like 2013’s Multi-Dimensional Fractal-Sorcery and Super Science. Luckily, Gigan had the musical chops to back it up. Their distinctive blend of brutal death metal, skronky technicality, and alien atmospheres made me a cult megafan. Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus interrupts a seven-year silence, and the only staffers thrilled about its arrival were myself and Alekhines Gun. In retrospect, this is understandable; AAI is a weird album by a weird band, and it’s unlikely to win over anyone who isn’t already so inclined. While Gigan’s newest is a lot to chew on, it offers a great glimpse into why I’ve stood gaping for over a decade.

If Mithras is Morbid Angel in space, then Gigan is Wormed in space. Eric Hersemann’s guitars lay the foundation, playing Defeated Sanity riffs at an Archspire pace. However, in its melodies, its composition, and its production, the album is foremost an atmospheric journey, not a riff-fest. Hersemann’s guitar and bass lines sound otherworldly through their dissonance and sudden transformations (“Erratic Pulsitivity and Horror”). Eschewing simple song structures, Gigan’s uneasy odysseys take several focused listens to make any sense. Straying from the genre’s typical clinical production, AAI opts for a reverb-laden wall of noise that resembles a muddled Mithras. This remains my biggest gripe, as the album’s cloudy guitar sound untooths its impressive melodies. Conversely, AAI’s highlight might be its drumming. Nathan Cotton’s world-class performance excels in its raw technicality, its frenzied evolution, and its cockpit role in the album’s ebb and flow. But most of all, it wows through its raw humanity. On highlights like “Trans-Dimensional Crossing of the Alta-Tenuis,” the attention to detail in Cotton’s performance shines through every beat and can only be described as beautiful. While that word isn’t common in brutal death metal reviews, it’s a testament to Gigan’s singular sound.

Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus is a wild journey. Gigan steamrolls the listener with brutal riffs, appealing to idiots like me without devolving into idiocy themselves (“Square Wave Subversion”). On the other end, Gigan’s skronky adventures are grand slams. The latter half of “Trans-Dimensional Crossing…” blends light-speed brutality with Morse Code guitars that remain the album’s highlight, while “Emerging Sects of Dagonic Acolytes” captivates me with The Velvet Underground-style chaos. Armed with bulletproof melodies in their right hand and chaos in their left, Gigan’s compositions feel like Lovecraftian narratives. Most strikingly, the shrieking melodies and distorted drum-led chorus of “The Strange Harvest of the Baganoids” evoke visceral terror for the plight of those poor Baganoids.1 Gigan fares less well when they sacrifice riffs for amorphous meanderings, especially on longer tracks (“Emerging Sects…”). But when AAI wields riffcraft and atmosphere in unison, it stands unmatched. For instance, the closer “Ominous Silhouettes…” wows with what sounds like a Deeds of Flesh riff being played by a depressed Martian, leading into dual-guitar screeches à la Pyrrhon. Engrossing and ever-evolving, Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus immerses the listener in its saga.

While snippets of Gigan bear the signatures of other bands, no one else has ever made music like this. Although its bloat and its muddy sound hold it back, Gigan’s comeback is a rewarding specimen of their unconventional brand of brutal death metal. Dissonant, brutal, grimy, and alien, Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus is tough to digest even for the Gigan-initiated. Ears shall be split, brows shall be furrowed, and poseurs shall be (strangely) harvested. Few will survive. But those that do will have quite a story to tell.

Tracks to Check Out: “Trans-Dimensional Crossing of the Alta-Tenuis,” “The Strange Harvest of the Baganoids”

#2024 #AmericanMetal #AnomalousAbstractigateInfinitessimus #AtmosphericDeathMetal #BrutalDeathMetal #DeathMetal #DeedsOfFlesh #DefeatedSanity #DissonantDeathMetal #Gigan #Mithras #Pyrrhon #TechnicalBrutalDeathMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheVelvetUnderground #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #TYMHM #Wormed

Defeated Sanity – Chronicles of Lunacy Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

The scattering guitar stabbings and inertia-rupturing kick runs of Defeated Sanity’s earlier exhausting oeuvre fell blurry in early critical discussion.1 And while the brutal death loving scene at large may have found less issue with what Psalms of the Moribund up to Passages into Deformity offered in terms None So Vile-indebted,2 frenzied groove, 2016’s Disposal of the Dead // Dharmata cemented with a two-pronged approach Defeated Sanity’s tonal heaviness and technical prowess. From humble roots as a father-son project between kit commander Lille Gruber and now departed jazz journeyman Wolfgang Teske, these German slam summoners have grown alongside post-Suffocation flagbearers like the shred-snappy Dying Fetus and hammer-wielding Devourment in a manner far more rhythmically studied. Growth as a concept, though, in this genre which pursues with relentless, murderous intent the swinging arms and whipping necks of its consumers, can present in forms contradictory to its primal base of mouth-frothing riff drags.

Yet, the chase towards the limits of extremity has defined both the trajectory of brutal death metal and Defeated Sanity. In turn, 2020’s career high mark The Sanguinary Impetus expanded upon Defeated Sanity’s frenetic, gutter-tuned madness and jazzy, warm, nimble-footed stimulations through the engineering expertise of extreme metal’s greatest ally, Colin Marston (Krallice, Gorguts),3 allowing the impact of Defeated Sanity’s free brutality to land with frightening precision. Organic and cutting, Gruber’s kit—already a known highlight in the Defeated Sanity brand—finds dynamic tones that separate gravity-rated snare rolls from rimshot murder calls, push synth toms that evoke a Peart/Reinart bouncing homage (Rush, Cynic, respectively, particularly on the outro to “Temporal Disintegration”)4, and spread cymbal accents that kiss the edges of the soundscape to dissipate the madness. Marston’s fuller control over Chronicles manages chaos while still showcasing the depth of play that Defeated Sanity possesses.

In reaction to the preceding overdosed-on-Watchtower expedition, Chronicles stomps with its steel-toes caked in Suffocation-by-jazz-graduates fervor, serving stank, slam, and snare-drills in equal and obnoxious measure (“The Odour of Sanctity,” “Extrinsically Enraged”). None of what Chronicles has festered in the Defeated Sanity think tank plays worlds different than previous work, but its leanness and excess in detail forces repeated, engaging listens. For the unbaptized, speed-adorned, hammering snare runs break open the brutal death flood gates and reinvigorate its half-time crawls with little concern for whether the listener will be able to hang along for the breakneck ride (“Amputationsdrang,” “Accelerating the Rot,” “A Patriarchy Perverse”). Oh, and those crawls, engorged and dripping with a primal passion, land often with all the calamitous force that Defeated Sanity promises.

But for all the rage and ragged riffcraft that Defeated Sanity splays about the festering crooks and scabbed-over crannies of Chronicles, their undeniable attachment to groove as an anchor remains vital to success. The guitar work across any Defeated Sanity album comes second in technicality to Gruber and longtime bassist Jacob Schmidt. But its ability to punctuate rumbling, fret-clanging pulses with a percussive treble accent (“Temporal Disintegration,” “Extrinsically Enraged”), or dance about Gruber’s best Bobby Jarzombek (Spastic Ink, Fates Warning) impressions (“Condemned to Vascular Famine”) and hellish blasts (“Amputationsdrag,” “Accelerating…”), gives Chronicles an amplified weight that it needs. Defeated Sanity’s continued mission to layer rhythm upon rhythm upon rhythm—including vocalist Josh Welshman’s poetically metered, putrid, and unintelligible spews—finds an important tether in this thoughtful technicality.

Brutal death metal at its most basic level expresses the aggression of death metal through lenses of increasing absurdity and Defeated Sanity’s continued refinement of their devious dialogues tethers with ease the listener to their every wile. Whether brief like the grinding intro of “Amputationsdrang” or extended like the techy spasm of the penultimate “Condemned to Vascular Famine,” each run on Chronicles of Lunacy comes loaded with more impressive moments than any listener could hope to remember in entirety. But the beauty in the snarling and crushing atmosphere that Defeated Sanity creates exists in its ability to switch from knuckle-scraping slam to finger-testing climb as if all were one from the beginning. Chronicles of Lunacy, as a honed interpretation of Defeated Sanity already proven métier, finds an easy spot in the upper tier of their storied catalog—and it doubles as a killer neck exercise.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist | Bandcamp
Websites: defeatedsanity.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/DefeatedSanity
Releases Worldwide: November 22nd, 2024

Maddog

Three decades in, Defeated Sanity remains just out of reach of convenient descriptors. They’re too proggy to be Cryptopsy, but far too brutal for Death; too slammy for Suffocation, but too riffy for Wormed; neither noodly enough for Origin nor grindy enough for Dying Fetus. A distinctive medley of familiar pieces, Defeated Sanity has always targeted maximum brutality, in both their caveman slam breaks and their superhuman technical flourishes. This has resulted in one of brutal death metal’s most unassailable discographies; even their most recent album The Sanguinary Impetus earned a 4.0 and a handful of list spots in 2020. Its follow-up Chronicles of Lunacy charts charted waters, but it’s a jolt of adrenaline nonetheless.

Defeated Sanity’s signatures swirl together on Chronicles of Lunacy. Despite picking up a new lead guitarist in Vaughn Stoffey (whose main cred appears to be an adjunct professorship in jazz guitar), the band’s guitarwork is as fearsome as ever. Chronicles’ most technical riffs maintain a strong sense of melody, even in their syncopated flailing. Brutal near-OSDM sections offer a respite, interspersed with bouts of slam. Defeated Sanity’s prog proclivities are tasteful but omnipresent, like the jazzy outro of “Temporal Distintegration” and the off-kilter rhythms of the opener “Amputationsdrang.” Indeed, while there are more differences than similarities, Defeated Sanity remains mandatory listening for fans of Human-era Death. Long-time bassist Jacob Schmidt holds it all together, with vivid bass lines that thump without farting.5 And as always, Lille Gruber’s drums marry the rhythmic prowess of Mike Smith (Suffocation) with the snare-heavy circus act of Flo Mounier (Cryptopsy). Every member of Defeated Sanity balances high-brow compositional wizardry with serf-friendly jams.

Even at its most unhinged, Chronicles of Lunacy is impossible to tune out. Defeated Sanity has cracked the code; the secret to musical success is to sound both interesting and thrilling. Parts of Chronicles lean one way or the other, like the mesmerizing drum patterns of “Condemned to Vascular Famine” and the shameless slam of “Accelerating the Rot.” But the album’s triumph is its ability to blur the line among its diverse strengths. Miraculously, one of its most memorable riffs is the opening of “Temporal Disintegration,” whose Wormed melody slays despite its indecipherable rhythm. Similarly, Defeated Sanity’s breakdowns use a strong sense of melody to escape slam’s typical idiocy (“Condemned to Vascular Famine”). A chunk of credit goes to Colin Marston’s production job. Marston’s talent is undisputed, but he outdoes himself with a lush guitar sound that honors both Defeated Sanity’s cutting riffs and their technical spectacles. Despite its twists and turns, Chronicles of Lunacy has lodged in my memory much more than I’d expected.

But if you blink, you might miss it. While Chronicles teeters on the edge of lunacy through much of its runtime, it sometimes steps over the edge. The album’s earlier cuts suffer the most, sometimes leaving me confused about how their chaotic pieces fit together (“The Odour of Sanctity”). More generally, when songs shapeshift so frequently, they can lose their sense of identity. For example, while “Extrinsically Enraged” blends Killing on Adrenaline and Pierced from Within riffs that each drag me in, its hectic mix of ideas makes the track less recognizable. Still, these are outliers in a record that otherwise showcases thoughtful writing. Gruber’s drum shenanigans superglue disparate sections together, as do the expertly executed fade-in melodies (“Condemned to Vascular Famine”). The closer “Heredity Violated” deserves special mention, with a climactic introduction, a skull-shattering main riff, and an ebb and flow that make it my favorite closer of 2024. Overall, Chronicles of Lunacy’s loose seams are just small holes in a tight-knit garment.

With bands like Wormed, Noxis, and Nile churning out stellar releases in 2024, brutal death metal has already given us more than we deserve. Defeated Sanity’s latest is just the cherry on top. Sanity’s Lunacy rewards patience, and its frenzied darting between technicality and brutality is a head-scratcher even after weeks of attention. But I’ll be damned if it isn’t one of 2024’s most endearing death metal releases.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

#2024 #40 #BrutalDeathMetal #ChroniclesOfLunacy #Cryptopsy #Death #DeathMetal #DefeatedSanity #Devourment #DyingFetus #GermanMetal #Nov24 #Origin #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SeasonOfMist #SpasticInk #Suffocation #TechnicalBrutalDeathMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #Watchtower #Wormed