You all know me — I don’t like intros. Pointless fucking tracks that usually come across as some hokey attempt to set up a horror movie vibe or, at worst, serve as filler to pad out a runtime. However, when the intro is Transference — the opening to Dejection Chrysalis by Dysentery — a festering, gaping axe wound straight through the heart of the planet, then I’m more than happy to hold my hands up and say: “Well, shit, you got me there.”
Because this record? This is the most brutal of Brutal Death Metal I’ve heard in a long, long time.
From the second Transference spills into the main body of the album, Dysentery go for the jugular and never let go. The drums hammer away like Hephaestus at his forge — sometimes slow and punishing, sometimes faster than your pulse during cardiac arrest, but always heavy enough to bend iron to their will. The guitars and bass are tuned so low they probably have to be played by demons living under the studio floor, yet every riff hits like a concrete avalanche. It’s ugly, crushing, and magnificent.
There’s a fine line between filth and definition, and Dysentery walk it masterfully — thick enough to choke on, but clear enough that you can hear every hit, every scrape of the strings, every vomit-soaked growl from whatever hellspawn they’ve got on the mic. And what a vocal performance it is: part subterranean growl, part reverse-exorcism, part demonic sewer regurgitation. It sounds less like a human voice and more like the earth itself caving in under pressure.
What really separates Dejection Chrysalis from the endless waves of “brutal for brutal’s sake” bands, though, is its sense of knowledge. Dysentery understand that brutality isn’t just about speed or volume — it’s about weight. Every breakdown, every riff shift, every sudden tempo change feels deliberate, as if some monstrous architect is pulling strings behind the curtain. It’s suffocating and cathartic all at once — a descent into pure sonic annihilation that somehow still grooves when it wants to.
There’s a dark intelligence here too — a sick kind of structure buried under the chaos. It’s not technical for the sake of being technical; it’s just that these bastards know exactly what they’re doing and they do it with precision. Like a surgeon with a bone saw and no anaesthetic.
When the record finally ends, you don’t get a sense of relief — just the eerie silence of the aftermath. You’ve been crushed, gutted, and reassembled, but you want to hit play again just to feel the pain one more time.
Dejection Chrysalis by Dysentery is available November 7th vai Comatose Music.
CHOICE CUT: Fratricidium
BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: Dejection Chrysalis isn’t just heavy — it’s catastrophic. Dysentery have mastered the art of destruction, sculpting chaos into something almost beautiful in its ugliness. A pure masterclass in what Brutal Death Metal should be: no compromise, no gloss, no mercy.
