Ah yes, the third album! Having successfully navigated the perhaps more difficult challenge of the second release, Defect Designer find themselves, by the force of arithmetic, faced with their third release. The questions here are less vexing but still trip up many bands: should we do more of the same or change things up? Have the fans had enough or do they hunger for more? Like all bands who solve this puzzle, Defect Designer have answered with a decisive - maybe. Depressants does what third albums should do, which is keep the principle ideas and motivations that made the first two albums work while changing up the exact expressions of those ideas.
So, you see, Depressants still has that off-kilter, weirdo death metal vibe that Chitin had. The idea is still to make death metal that is progressive not because it has a lot of notes or counts time in strange ways but rather because it constantly feels like it's about to fly off the handle and burst at the seams. But this time around, Defect Designer are reaching into a more dour and dark color palette for their influences, as is hinted at by the album's title and contrasted by its cover. This means that Depressants sounds more Norwegian if that makes sense. No, I don't mean the weather or the darkness of the cold, but rather the country's propensity for extremely heavy bands that make uniquely strange music (you know, like blog favorites Beaten to Death for example).
Check out "Butterfly Juice Straws" for example. Yes, that's the name of the track. So yeah, all of the pieces are still there: there's a death metal riff which makes the majority of the track tick, harsh vocals that seem to be on the edge of bursting into flames, and then a clean, sweeping, rock section. But everything feels tinted down. Even that clean section is more grunge rock than it is progressive rock, though the Pink Floyd influences are still all there. But it's less "Shine On" and more Meddle, if you catch my drift. This is also true of the heavier parts of the track; Depressants goes deeper intro grindcore than previous releases, with some truly blistering sections (like the intro to "Repeated Aversive Stimuli Inducer" right after this track).
When the album is more death metal, it feels more akin to death-doom, even as it maintains the technical flourish of the band. The end result, like I mentioned above, is still Defect Designer through and through and if you're looking for their kind of dense, weird, and whiplash inducing death metal then you're in the right place. But if you're looking for those bright splashes of color that you got on Chitin, you're in the wrong part of town buster. This is Defect Designer at the blue edge of the spectrum, all melancholy and gloom. Who says you can't be weird and depressed/depressing? Certainly not me and certainly not Defect Designer. While this album won't leave you sad per se (it's way too silly, ambitious, and intricate for that), it does create an experience that is more oppressive and heavier than previous releases from the band. And that's a good thing.