Review Summary: The hilarious music video for ‘Cryomancer’ is where most people will stop smiling.
Defiler is one of the newest Deathcore bands making a buzz on The Internet. Why you may ask? Similar to Attack Attack’s music video for Stick Stickly, their unintentionally hilarious music video has amassed hundreds of thousands of views online for their song Cryomancer where Crabtastic balls to the floor dance moves are instead replaced with some of the most ridiculous facial expressions to be made by any Human Being. This video has undoubtedly rocketed these young kids from San Francisco into the crowded Deathcore scene with their full length LP Pangea.
Instrumentally, the album is, you guessed it, breakdowns. Breakdowns, and more breakdowns. The good old chugga chugga that you’d expect from the new waves of Deathcore bands. The album is also filled with a lot of the clichés found in the genre as well, such as the instrument pause, lone vocalist shout, then into breakdown song intro that’s found in Cryomancer. However, the album manages to have a few high points. The song A Bribe For The Ferryman shows some definite technicality and an attempt at trying to up the ante on their musicianship. Another high point is the vocalist himself who definitely displays a lot of talent and competency with very guttural lows and screeching highs. Additionally, the drummer’s fills are spot on and is able to keep up with the sporadically changing time signatures. However, just like the rest of the instrumentation in this album, it is quite easy to predict what he will do, even on the first listen of this album.
The lyrics are horrendous. The primary creation of this album, is stated in the song Pangaea:
"Do you remember the day I said I’d write you love songs? Well instead you’re receiving this!" Simply put, the entire album is based around the hatred of an ex girlfriend, something I find to be very juvenile to make an album for. Other lyrical themes include themes about Cosmic and Planetary disasters seen in the songs Ahzrukhal and No, It's A Cardigan, But Thanks For Noticing. The theme of ex-girlfriend hatred returns in their song Cyromancer with such lyrics as
"I wanna see you cry bitch!" and
"quit your ***ing bitching, once the skin is gone you wont feel anymore."
Defiler seems to be a young band, I am guessing that none of them are over the age of 20. If that is right, I find this very impressive for such a young group of kids. However, they suffer severely from the instrumental and lyrical clichés that plague many of the bands out there. Given time,
Defiler could prove to be a powerful force in the scene given time and practice.
