Japanese death metal quartet Defiled have spent three decades releasing records that are unique and stubbornly uncategorizable. From the innovative and boundary-pushing (2003’s Divination and 2011’s In Crisis), to the leaner, more modern era (Towards Inevitable Ruin through Horror Beyond Horror), their eight-album discography has wandered through as many genres as it has writers on this blog.1 Divination and In Crisis sounded like stuffing Cryptopsy, Voivod, and Primus into a metal box and kicking it down a flight of stairs, but lineup turnover ushered in a disappointing shift on Towards Inevitable Ruin that persisted through the next three albums. Accordingly, my AMG colleagues had no shortage of criticisms, yet beneath every complaint—and AMG’s Law of Diminishing Recordings—lies the group’s unwavering shinjō:2 write the music they want to write and don’t give a damn what anyone thinks, as long as it provokes a reaction. What reaction will Defiled’s ninth album, Altered State, draw?
As it turns out, a positive one. On Altered State, Defiled’s early, unhinged chaos has given way to a more controlled sound, though the quartet still brings plenty of rhythmic changes (“Dazed in Blindness”), odd time signatures (“Prophecies”), and off-kilter grooves (“Obsession”) that confirm the group’s trademark brand of wackiness is alive and kicking. Across approximately forty-three minutes, Defiled tear through fourteen tracks, loading songs like “Portal,” “The Degradation,” and “Genocidal Stage” with pit-igniting, muscular riffs that nod toward Sepultura’s classic era. The first seven tracks fly by, but with Altered State’s familiar grindcore-leaning structure, the feeling of fatigue begins to creep in, especially as many songs follow similar patterns. Fortunately, cuts like “The Ultra Death” and “Metamorphosis of Evil” help break that spell, injecting a welcome dose of Human-era Death into the mix. And while it remains a melting pot of genres, Altered State plants its flag firmly in thrash and death above all else.
Two enduring criticisms have plagued Defiled’s modern era, but Altered State shows meaningful improvement on both. 2024’s Horror Beyond Horror struggled not because of weak performances, but because its material failed to leave a lasting mark. Altered state largely flips that script, relying on a barrage of catchy riffing by Yusuke Sumita and Sinichiro Hamada to craft tracks that are both engaging and memorable in equal measure. From “Obsession” through “Genocidal Stage,” my head rarely stayed still, nodding in time as Keisuke Hamada’s assaulting blasts and jackhammer rhythms fuse with Sumita and Hamada’s down-picked guitar lines. Vocally, Hamada delivers a solid, deathly growl with a dusting of groove metal grit that sticks with Defiled’s usual approach. Though his delivery is throaty, consistent and appropriately abrasive, his phrasing doesn’t vary much. Long drawn‑out growls tend to appear in the same spots—always during intros and usually coming out of choruses or a bridge—making his performance predictable even as the instrumentation around it shifts and mutates, serving more as a functional piece than a standout characteristic.
Takachita Nakajima’s bass excursions revive some of the low-end grooves that defined Defiled’s early years (see “The Degradation” and “Metamorphosis of Evil”, for example), but recent releases buried them under bad production. While the mix here is still too loud and compressed to give his bass the adequate space it deserves, Altered State’s production is nonetheless a clear improvement. Its added warmth and body give the material a classic death metal heft that lets the songwriting land squarely in that sweet spot of ’90s nostalgia, while still remaining balanced enough for Nakakima’s bass ventures to occasionally surface beneath the nuances of Humada’s terrific drumming or Sumita’s and Keisuke Hamada’s sprinting riffwork.
In his review of Horror Beyond Horror, Felagund held out hope that the next writer to tackle Defiled would earn the honor of bestowing their first “Great” rating since In Crisis. I won’t be claiming that distinction with Altered State, but I do find myself in the welcome position of giving these Japanese veterans their strongest marks in a decade. Altered State succeeds by largely shedding prior missteps and packing itself with memorable material while still delivering the patented twists and turns that have defined Defiled’s sound for years. Hard to love but undoubtedly entertaining, Altered State is the first step in a course correction Defiled desperately needed.
Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Season of Mist
Websites: defiledjapan.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/defiled
Releases Worldwide: June 12th, 2026
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