Looking for some weird, wonderful, sci-fi grind to blast out the cobwebs? If so, California’s Defigurement have got you covered.
’Endbryo’ is built on sturdy, unshakeable foundations – big, round-shouldered riffs delivered with the ferocity of someone demolishing human skulls with a ball-peen hammer – around which the band drape a multitude of lurid strangenesses. Breathless, seemingly non-stop shredding courses between those big, bulky riffs, while the album is dotted with interludes and threaded with some sort of dystopian, post-human narrative. Despite its torrential nature there’s a definite sense of ‘journey’ here, and you’re frequently struck by the notion that you’re experiencing a rapid-fire series of miniature, prog rock operas – ones that’ve been folded in on themselves like deadly, ultra-condensed munitions sent back from a bleak, war-torn future.
The results are heavy as heck, but also thrillingly dynamic. It’s like a wild, atom-smashed blend of Wormrot, Cryptic Shift, Gridlink and An Abstract Illusion, as concocted by maniacs who think grindcore is the most appropriate tool with which to test the fabric of the cosmos.