What the fuck is going on in Norway? Defect Designer cause explosive, stylistic whiplash like no other band can.
Release date: May 15, 2026 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
It seems like there’s always a new weirdo metal album waddling into view lately which is nice because I like that. Shake that ass, girl. Get up on stage for a real motherfucker and let me shower you in praise and admiration.
The next in line is Depressants by Defect Designer, a once-Russia-now-Norway-based death metal band for whom the label ‘progressive’ comes up pretty short, or even ‘death metal’ for that matter. You never know where this album’s going to go next and I find that especially appealing in this context instead of disjointed or aimless. The reason why is hard to nail down – it’s like there’s a soul to the whole album that creates this through line making it all make sense even when it doesn’t and no matter what the music sounds like from song to song.
Like, my first listen was resplendent with knife-whittled anarchy, an unknowable chaos where everything was familiar, and yet it all sharing the same space was jarring and exciting. Going from ‘holy shit‘ to ‘what the hell is going on here?‘ to ‘yooooooooooo‘ with each passing moment was almost a bit much. I’m happy to say that subsequent listens brought a massive sense of clarity and analytical accomplishment absolutely nothing different to the experience.
It’s hard to even know where to start with this album. 13 tracks, almost an hour long, and nearly every track is different from others. My pal Iain referred to this album as a ‘cheerful kind of madness‘ and I think that’s very apt. Where madness is often depicted as a problem or downfall, darkness incumbent within the affected who has suffered something life-rending, this is more like the Disney‘s Alice in Wonderland kind of madness played about with technicolor dreams and talking animals.
“Daily Dose Of Gloom” plays it pretty straight with big bass moments and kinetic energy befitting of a metal band, yeah. Then “Butterfly Juice Straws” cakes on the atmosphere by channeling the Dracula boss fight music from Castlevania with its beginning melody; maybe unintentionally, but it’s what I got from it. “Carte Blanche” dovetails into a very serviceable rock cover of the James Bond 007 theme song at the end for seemingly no reason after indulging in metallic intensity akin to Weston Super Maim. Maybe they’re just hype for 007 First Light. Bjorn ‘Speed’ Strid of Soilwork shows up for “Expiration Deferral Request Denied” to make it a groovier, calmer prog delight after the first third of the album open-hand slaps you with a fly paper glove.
And that’s all the more normal shit on here. “Body Count Of My Cow Tail” is a left turn you couldn’t see coming with the foresight of Nostradamus, the stuff of hyperbole given corporeal form. It’s a delicate, seductive number featuring the vocals of opera and jazz singer, Makeda Rose. She embodies a mysterious and dangerous presence singing of luring men to their deaths like a succubus cryptid while the instrumentation goes full Primus during breaks with exuberant bass and rollicking drums. Just unreal shit to have on your alleged death metal album, but so intriguing and formidable.
Some of the more expected tracks hit hard as well. I really love “As The Terracotta Dust Settles”. It has an epic flare with some black metal-esque ambience to it before it tears into big riffs and double bass drumming. Even this feels a bit like a surprise since none of the album lays along this particular lane of artistic thought, but it’s profound metal execution and a highlight of Depressants for sure. “Scorching The Rival Pogonomyrmex Burrows” gets a shoutout as well for doing some Mastodon worship through a death metal filter, as does “I Heard Robespierre Screamed Like A Bitch” for the title alone.
This album is just a cavalcade of intrusive thought; a tincture of hemlock to kill, morphine to numb, and enough LSD to have fun on the way out. Synapses fire like ship cannons at the bays of your sanity as you try to cling to anything resembling normalcy in a sea of staggering tumult. There is none, because Defect Designer aren’t normal musicians and they don’t make normal music that coheres in expected fashions, eluding all traditional labeling on the way down into their rabbit hole. Woe, and a good trip, unto thee who presses play on Depressants expecting something simple and plain. You can collect your souvenir T-shirt at the end if you live.
