Band:	Defacement
Album:	Duality
Style:	Black metal, Death metal
Release date:	July 2024
A review by:	AndyMetalFreak

01. Optic
02. Burden
03. Vagus
04. Barrier
05. Facial
06. Scabulous
07. Hypoglossal
08. Duality

For Defacement, Duality simply represents another way to melt your face off through extreme dissonant blackened death.

Defacement (formerly known as Deathcrush) are a Dutch blackened death trio consisting of Forsaken Ahmed (vocals/bass), Khalil Azagoth (guitars), and Bestia (drums), who formed back in 2019. After unleashing a devastating force of face-melting dissonant blackened death releases that also ventured into the realms of extreme avant-garde obscurity in the form of their full-length debut Deviant (2019) and sophomore Defacement (2021), the band now return with their third full-length offering, Duality. While you may have recovered from their monstrously heavy self-titled release 3 years ago, this next 50 minutes might just melt your face off once more (and this time for good), but will this uncomfortable listening experience be an enjoyable one, or will it simply be too much to stomach this time?

Duality has 8 tracks in total, the first being a rather unusual short, dark, cyber-synth intro titled "Optic", which swiftly leads to the powerful main opening track "Burden". This song relentlessly bombards you with the band's most extreme dissonant blackened death yet, along with an intensely saturated sound throughout a 10-minute duration. Amidst this unrelenting heavy layered structure, provided by ferociously dissonant blackened tremolos, thunderously complex drumming, relentlessly rapid bass, and unworldly monstrous gnarly death growls, there are some quite satisfying melodic guitar leads, although they aren't unleashed all that often. Now, don't expect things to get any easier on the ears following this song, as aside from a few vital interludes (which I'll be picking up on), Duality retains this unforgiving and challenging dissonant approach throughout the majority of its runtime.

Interestingly, the song "Barrier" does act as a small barrier for its lightly melodic distorted leads and stylistic drumming beats, which give the songwriting a slight touch of groove and melody. However, the rhythm section throughout "Scabulous" also delivers a few similar groovy patterns, and there are some memorable riff melodies also scattered throughout that song, despite the songwriting, in general, remaining mostly complex and dissonant, much as it was on the song "Burden". Although these few groovy sections momentarily ease off on the album's complexity and overwhelming heaviness, it's actually the multiple short, eerie, psychedelic interludes ("Vagus", "Facial", and "Hypoglossal") that really act as barriers between the main tracks. Altogether these interludes make up for around 10 minutes of the album, and although underwhelming in comparison to the main lengthier songs, they play a vital role in providing a breathing space and recovery time for the listener's poor ear drums so they don't explode into smitheries along with your face, which, as the cover art rightfully depicts, could well happen otherwise. It's impossible to go on without mentioning the epic 16-minute closer, "Duality"; everything you've already heard so far comes together in this monstrous climax, but you'll have to see if you can endure another 16 minutes of this outrageously heavy dissonant onslaught, as your poor wretched ears might not want to take much more.

The sheer heaviness and complexity of  Duality's songwriting is certainly very challenging, even for the most well accustomed listeners of extreme dissonant blackened death, and instrumentation aside, many would consider the gnarly death growl vocal style particularly monotonous by the end. Within this dense hellish soundscape, the rhythm section and guitars twist and turn every which way they can; sometimes this can simply be too much, but you're suddenly then hit by sections of groove and melodies where you least expect it, and this just shows how dynamic and unpredictable the songwriting really is. Then again, the main factor that stands out above all isn't necessarily the songwriting itself, but the remarkable production quality; Duality is mixed and mastered to an exemplary high standard. The structural layering may be at the extreme end, but each element hits you with great devastating force where no element is held back. Overall, Duality is not the easiest album to digest, but it can definitely be considered the band's most dynamic structurally and also heaviest yet. So in what other ways can Defacement melt your face off next, I wonder?