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Interview with Defiled guitarist Yusuke Sumita



Japan's Defiled have returned with a lightning storm of technical riffs with their new album Infinite Regress. While civilization seems doomed to march toward a bleak future, these death metal veterans from the rising sun propel the genre forward with a chaotic but catchy record.

Their 1984-inspired single "Masses In Chaos," for instance, balances memorable hooks with otherwise spastic compositions. The song's official music video both captures their live intensity of fretboard shredding and breakneck blast beats, with an endearingly low-budget home video aesthetic. Look for the hands coming out of the gear case, if you catch my drift.

Infinite Regress jumps all over the place. It's got discordant arpeggios, the most staccato percussion arrangement, to straight-up thrash metal beats to keep it fast and old school. Imagine a cross between Immolation and early VoiVod, and that's the territory these freaks have carved out with their new album, which arrives today via Season Of Mist.

I interviewed their guitar Yusuke Sumita a few months ago via email, and our transmission is below.
How does Infinite Regress compare to your last record?
The album was mixed and mastered by Jim Morris at Morrisound Studio in Tampa, Florida. I can say without any hesitation that he brought the album's quality to a level that we wouldn't have been able to achieve by ourselves; we’re very, very happy with his great work and the final result. 

It's been a quarter century since your first official release, the 1994 Defeat of Sanity EP. How have you seen death metal evolve since then?   
Please don’t get offended by what I'm gonna say, it's just my opinion, nothing more. I honestly think that maybe only 10 or 20 death metal bands have actually brought something new to the table in terms of creating truly original music and coming up with their own personal sound. The rest is just trying to emulate them and follow some stylistic codes and genre "rules." But again, the same could be said for most music genres today, this is a contemporary problem that unfortunately affects music in general. 

What's your thoughts on death metal music today? 
 Nothing Special. Everybody enjoys what they like, nothing more, nothing less... As for myself, I still listen to a few of my old favorite death metal bands and albums; good music is timeless right?  

Tell me about one album that changed your life. 
 It's very difficult to choose only one album, but I’d say Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ is the one!   

Who are you heavy metal heroes who inspire you? 
In the same mindset, I believe that James Hetfield from Metallica is that metal inspirational figure that changed my life.   

What's one of your favorite movies and why?  
 You and your hard question!! I guess that would force me to choose between Ridley Scott's ‘Blade Runner’ and George Orwell's ‘1984.’ As hard the choice seems to be, I would say that 1984 is my favorite movie. By the way, check out the song “Masses in Chaos” on our new album, it's actually about that movie. 

What are you excited to do in 2020 and beyond?  
We’d like to play as many shows as possible and hopefully be able to return to the USA, but nothing is confirmed yet. However, we have a 3 week European tour with Vader in March and we're really excited about it.   

Thanks for going one on one with the Grim-1. Anything you'd like to say in closing? 
  It was wonderful chatting you today, and I really appreciate you taking time to interview me. Also thank you so much for everybody reading this. Don’t forget to listen to our new album ‘Infinite Regress.’ Cheers! 

 Check out Defiled's new album at their bandcamp here. 

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