(written by Islander)

From the standpoint of a listener the idea of a band like Norway-based Defect Designer taking their music to a higher level is a bewildering concept — because their music has been so continuously bewildering. They have used death metal as a laboratory for experimentation, with results that are eccentric, subversive, unpredictable, and dazzling.

For this listener (and I suspect for all their fans), Defect Designer’s music produces big smiles. Maybe they were smiling too when they named their new album Depressants, because it is a powerful anti-depressant, no prescription needed. At least based on early listening, it also comes across as their best work yet.

Yes indeed, they have found ways to take their music to a higher level, though how to linguistically define the unconventional countours of that new plateau is no easier than it has been in the past.

We’ve premiered songs from each of Defect Designer’s last three releases, and fortune has smiled upon us because today we get to do it a fourth time, linguistic challenges and all. Speaking of linguistic challenges, the name of the song you’re about to hear is “Scorching The Rival Pogonomyrmex Burrows“. Continue reading »

This isn’t our site’s first encounter with Norway-based Defect Designer. The last time, in the context of premiering a track from their 2022 EP Neanderthal, we attempted to prepare people by explaining that the group “revel in severely discombobulating their listeners, and beating them almost senseless”.

Even Ian Miller‘s utterly bizarre cover art for that EP was only a hint of the sounds behind it, a “mutated and marauding amalgam of grindcore and death metal that’s as relentlessly head-spinning as it is viscerally obliterating”.

Now Defect Designer are returning, with a third full-length named Chitin that’s set for release on March 14th by Transcending Obscurity Records. What can you expect this time? In a nutshell, more madness, but mutated yet again. Continue reading »