Deformatory – Inversion of the Unseen Horizon (Review)

This is the third album from Canadian death metal band Deformatory.

I really like Deformatory’s work. Both 2013’s In the Wake of Pestilence and 2016’s Malediction were very enjoyable and satisfying slabs of brutal technicality. It has been a long wait for Inversion of the Unseen Horizon, but we finally have 43 minutes of new material.

Deformatory play technical death metal with lashings of brutality. The songs are precise and merciless. It’s a controlled form of frenzied mayhem that the band unleash, one which is augmented by surprisingly potent streaks of melody, dark moments of atmosphere, infectious rhythmic devastation, and straightforward death metal brutality.

These are brutally violent songs. Their intensity is almost physical. It’s a testament to the band’s songwriting skills that the music is arranged and structured just right in order for the full songs to be greater than the sum of their parts. The complexity of the music never outweighs the needs of the songs themselves, which makes for an album that has more catchy and memorable parts than is the norm for something so technical.

Deformatory know what they are doing with this style. All of the various ingredients are balanced well, and the songs are effective enough so that once the initial power of the songs has hit, and once instant gratification has been satisfied, repeat visits to their shores are positively encouraged through depth of delivery, songcraft, and creative nuance.

Deformatory’s third album is their best. Inversion of the Unseen Horizon is an album that should have pride of place in any technical death metal fan’s collection.

Enough said. Go listen to Deformatory.