Defleshed
Reclaim the Beat
6.8
Death/thrash is one of those sub-genres full of promise, yet ridden with stagnation. While it’s one of my favorite styles when done right, even the better bands tend to get stuck in a rut, releasing albums that are interchangeable with each other. Carnal Forge are the most egregious offenders of this. While a good album is a good album, it leads to the sentiment of “I already have one of their albums, what do I need another for?”
With an introductory statement such as that, it’s obvious that I’m pigeonholing Defleshed as one of those bands. Now the question is whether or not a typical Defleshed album is worth your money in the first place. I say yes. In my hierarchy, they are a second-tier band, below genre leaders like Deathchain and Dew Scented, but certainly worth hearing.
The template is pretty standard: fast and tight, yet unvarying drumming, heavy and thrashy riffing, while a hoarse-throated vocalist snarls and shouts over the top. Drummer Matte Modin (Dark Funeral, and others) adds consistency to their sound, but does nothing that’s over the top. Gustaf Jorde’s vocals have a little bit of originality to them, kind of combining his shout and growl together, sounding like an angry dog. The last member is Lars Lofven, who cranks out all the riffs. Some succeed, some don’t, but when you’re always playing this fast, there are only so many riffs out there that sound good.
Getting into song specifics wouldn’t be all that helpful in their case, since many of the songs are indistinguishable, and comments would be like “well, here Lars strums the open-E eight times and then hits a power chord progression, whereas in the last song he only played six opens”. “Red Hot” is the one song that sets itself well apart from the rest. This is a Motley Crue cover, which explains why the first 40 seconds is an intro out of guitar rock era of the 70’s and 80’s, then they kick it up a notch, but the feel of the song with Defleshed behind the wheel is death’n’roll. The Crown would be proud.
As far as Defleshed albums stack up, I’d reach for Fast Forward and Royal Straight Flesh before this album, mostly due to the sharper production on those albums. The songwriting is pretty similar amongst them all, perhaps a bit faster on the older works. If you love death/thrash or if you just need a Defleshed album for your collection, Reclaim the Beat should suit you fine, and it will probably be in stock!
