MARTYR DEFILED

Hailing from Lincoln, the sleepy city of the very base of Metal Discovery, are deathcore quintet Martyr Defiled. Newly signed to Siege of Amida Records, 'In Shadows' is their latest studio offering, a hard-hitting sonic artillery firing out seven succinct cuts of fairly well produced, quasi-virulent heaviness. Death metal clichés are abound from the very first track and throughout, punctuated with similarly clichéd metalcore breakdowns (or "disgusting breaks" according to the blurb on this promo copy!?!) As such, there's little that's fresh sounding about Martyr Defiled's music and you'll find nothing here that hasn't been rehashed ad infinitum within the genre by the likes of their label-mates Annotations of an Autopsy et al. That's not necessarily an entirely negative thing though as exercising their aggression within the constraints of the deathcore aesthetic, Martyr Defiled have evidently refined their style within set generic parameters so the EP is sharply focussed if nothing else. And the execution of their self-imposed deathcore limitations is pretty impressive. While I found myself cringing at some of the breakdowns - "oh no, genericism strikes again" - one cannot deny how impressively tight they are when bass, drums and guitars become a unified rhythm section. And that's also true of the death (and occasionally thrash) riffs rife throughout. The vocals are generally quite effective with enough variation in the growled delivery to add some depth to the overall aggressive dynamic in the tracks. Exactly what words of spite are uttered I am entirely unsure as they're largely incomprehensible apart from the occasional "fucking" of "fuck" that can be deciphered so no doubt Martyr Defiled are launching some sort of vociferous polemic against the woes of the world. All in all, not groundbreaking in any way but well worth a listen nonetheless.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

Siege of Amida

EP

IN SHADOWS

Review by Mark Holmes

RUNNING TIME:

21:31

RELEASE DATE:

3rd Sept 2012

TRACK LISTING

1) Black Mesa
2) R/evolution
3) Vultures
4) Nemesis
5) Prison Walls
6) Goldstein
7) Isolate

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

UK

"...a hard-hitting sonic artillery firing out seven succinct cuts of fairly well produced, quasi-virulent heaviness."