After a pretty extensive stay with Willowtip Records Defeated Sanity was snatched up by Season of Mist and Chronicles of Lunacy is their first release for their new label.  This is their seventh full-length album and Defeated Sanity knows how to pack a solid uppercut with streamlined songs.  It fits them best since they’re pretty darn brutal, but make no mistake they inject a fair amount of technical flair into their releases.

The Sanguinary Impetus, released in 2020, was another impressive foray into all things bottom-heavy and brutal and that path continues with this sucker.  Mainman Lille Gruber on drums returns with his stable of Jacob Schmidt on bass and Josh Welshman on vocals.  They welcome in new guitarist Vaughn Stoffey, to the fold, and the band is now ½ German and the other members are from the United States.  Unsure how that will work out touring-wise.

Suffice it to say the band rips into “Amputationsdrang”, a pretty short song and I love the opening aggressive gallop which then gives way to monster blasting from Lille.  Tight, as usual, and the bottom-heaviness of the guitars remain unchanged even with the new guitarist.  That is also attributed to the fact that Lille knows guitar and plays it as well as being the primary guitarist on their last album.  The man knows how to write death metal, but meaningful death metal.  Lots of brutal gutturals and rippin’ blast beats with Jacob’s prominent and impressive bass guitar skills always on full display.

“The Odour of Sanctity” is next on the list and has more technical madness happening with some monster stop-and-start riffing and excellent drum patterns.  The rhythm section truly shines on this song with the signature Defeated Sanity brutality stamped all over this.  There is quite a monster groove at the end of the song.  This moment is excruciatingly heavy and the band will get the crowd moving quickly with this song.

Interspersed along the way are a few longer songs with “Condemned to Vascular Famine” being the longest at six minutes.  Starting with technical jazz-infused drums and bass guitar plucking this intro gives way to monster blasting and super heavy guitars with killer gutturals.  The slow-down groove at the 1.27 moment is hopping!!  It has a NYDM groove style to it.  Truly heavy.  The blast beats return with the amazing bass plucking over the blasts – very impressive and excellent drum patterns in the middle of the song, as the technical and stop-and-start moments have a bit of polyrhythm to them.  The instrumentation on display is some of the best the band has ever done.  The crazy blast beats return with the song ending on an atmospheric note, reminding me of something off Testimony of the Ancients from Pestilence.

“Heredity Violated” ends the album as it starts off mid-paced and it is pretty damn brutal.  More technical wizardry and creative guitar moments before the blast beats tear into you.  There are some slow-down groove moments and lots of tempo shifts with this ending song, tying up the album in a nice brutal bow for all of us.

Chronicles of Lunacy is a well-produced album being able to capture the Defeated Sanity bottom-heavy tone without it sounding like a mess.  I have heard similar style bands unable to achieve good mixes and the albums sounding like a sludge pile of crap, never the case with Defeated Sanity.  The band knows their style of brutal technical death metal to a T and chalk Chronicles of Lunacy to another bone-breaking release from veterans of the brutal scene.

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