Continuing from the demented brilliance portrayed in their 2022 EP, Neanderthal, the originally Russian but now Norway-based Defect Designer are on fine form here. Their third full-length since forming in 2005, the band come over as lunatics getting together to play an uneasy mixture of death metal and grind with an emphasis on clunky, almost caveman groove with an ear-piercing and abrasive guitar tone, resulting in a sound that sounds like a slower Cryptopsy at moments. Yet the variety at play makes Chitin far more than a pale imitation - the way that We Will Need Your Chitin speeds up and verges on thrashiness, for example, before growing almost funky with that odd little section of bass and guitar interplay.

While it can seem that each song is its own new splatter of madness, you can hear the cohesiveness of these musicians. Things remain peculiar, however; Uglification Spell plays with tempo changes even more, whilst We Prescribe throws in demented backing choirs and lyrics taken from Macbeth's three witches. Gaudy Colors From Your Plastic Bag takes an Autopsy-esque base and adds some brief backing saxophone. At just over four minutes it's one of the longest pieces present, indulging in some prog-tinged groovy meanderings, and seems to set a standard for the rest of the album to revolve around...

... So it's very in keeping with Defect Designer's inherent weirdness that the following Shine Shine changes genres entirely, keeping the groovy guitars but taking more of a rocking, grungy vibe complete with clean singing, provided by Soilwork's Björn "Speed" Strid! It's strange and different enough to make you wonder if you've switched albums by mistake, particularly since the following Story of a Styrofoam turns back to grinding metal, albeit taking a jazzier tone in the drums (provided by Fleshgod Apocalypse's Eugene Ryabchenko who does a superb job throughout the album) and allowing the vocals to turn to even odder and more awkward screeches and grunts.

And from then on the album seems determined to freak the listener out even more, be it the sludgy Insomnia with vocals becoming deranged punky yells, far sloppier than the precise instrumentation, or the cheerful and brief Nu, pogodi!, apparently based upon a Russian childrens' tv show. Comparatively, the closing Orgone Accumulator begins with an intense, blackened burst of speedy metal before devolving into proggy post-thrash, one of the more coherent pieces on the album. You could try and posit that overall the latter third of the album is madder and more enjoyable than the previous section, yet it's all relatively strange when compared to other death metal bands out there. Defect Designer aren't avant-garde, there doesn't seem to be enough consideration here for that, they simply have their insanity written into the very DNA of their songs. And Chitin is an album that doesn't really make sense when considered as a whole, with not all of its component parts seeming to work as intended, which makes a recommendation for this downright cruel for the wrong ears! Yet those who enjoy the sensation of listening to mad, wrong, strange music and dig death metal at its most deranged will have a lot of fun here, not least from gazing at that wonderful cover art while the band kick out the jams.